So Pastor Pat has been working for the past couple of months on having Starbucks coffee available on Sunday mornings for people to enjoy before our weekly worship gathering. Last week at our Easter gathering, we debuted the Starbucks coffee. A lot of folks liked it, but most of the older folks complained that it was too strong (never mind that the folks that made it had already made it weaker than the directions called for).

So this week, they made it even weaker. When I poured my coffee, it looked like hot tea. It was a pretty big cup of coffee, but two creamers was too much.

I heard from several people, who complained about last week's coffee, say how this week's coffee was just right. These same people will tell you that they hate Starbucks.

The first, and most obvious point, is that if we're going to serve Starbucks coffee, and make it a point to tell people that it's Starbucks coffee (we have little signs up around the coffee station), then it sure better taste like Starbucks coffee.

So picture this hypothetical situation: a visiting couple, in their mid-twenties, come to check out our church. Cool, Starbucks coffee, they think, and they get a cup. Then it tastes awful to them. Is this coffee for us, or for them?

Isn't this a thing our churches our guilty of, across the board? We don't want the music too loud. We don't want the environment too casual. We don't want the coffee too strong. We're constantly thinking about what we want out of church, what is safe for us.

We should be basing more of our decisions on a vision of who God is calling us to reach. Instead, what we have our people who don't understand the culture around us (I hate Starbucks) making decisions that affect the way we connect with the culture around us (that coffee is too strong, let's just make it weaker).

Labels: church

From Right-Brain Preaching:

C.S. Lewis once referred to himself as "the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom." The night before his conversion, Lewis had a long conversation with J.R.R. Tolkein, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkein was a Christ follower and he tried to convince Lewis of the credibility of Christ. But Lewis was full of objections. At one point, Tolkein said, "Your inability to understand stems from a failure of imagination on your part!"

One of the greatest threats to the future of the church is a failure of our right-brain imaginations.

I think C.S. Lewis modeled whole-brained Christianity. His theological writings are as logical as logic can be. And the Narnia series is as creative as creative can be.

I've said it a thousand times, but there are two ways of doing ministry: ministry out of memory and ministry out of imagination. Ministry out of memory is doing it the way its always been done. Ministry out of imagination is incarnating the gospel in new ways.

We need some more preachers with sanctified imaginations.

Which way do the people in your church tend to approach ministry: "the way it's always been done," or "incarnating the gospel in new ways?"

Labels: church

Dan has an interesting take on the differences between "emergent" and "emerging" in his blog post Origin of the Term "Emergent". The term "emergent" came separately from "emerging." "Emergent" was chosen as the name for a new theological network that some guys were forming out of the Leadership Network.

The confusing part in all this in terms of words, was that the "emerging church" was being used at that time and becoming more prevalent as described in the earlier blog entry. Tony told me that when he, Brian and Doug were thinking of new names for the theology group that was formerly the Leadership Network one - they were not trying to play off the "emerging church" term. Tony said, that naming it "emergent" was because the word is defined as the "coming to the surface" of new organic life beginning and reproducing and that was why they chose the word.

The similarities in approach, as well as terminology, meant that they would end up being interchangeable for many people.

It would be so interesting to think if back in June 2001, if they would have named the group "Odyssey" or something instead of "emergent". Then there wouldn't have been the confusion and blending of "emerging" and "emergent". I wonder if we would have "the odyssey church" used as a term today.

Interesting background. I've often wondered about the whole emerging/emergent thing.

Labels: church, emerging

Dan Kimball, the author of The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship, discusses in a blog post the Origin of the Term "Emerging Church."

For me, the term "the emerging church" simply meant churches who were focusing on the mission of Jesus and thinking about the Kingdom in our emerging culture. It meant churches who were rethinking what it means to be the church in our emerging culture. There were some distinct values about leadership and community and evangelism approaches that were being established among the churches - but overall at that time it meant missional churches passionate about seeing the gospel of Jesus communicated and lived out to emerging generations. That is at least what I was thinking as I used the term and still do think as I use the term "emerging church". The word "emerging" simply means 'what is coming to the surface'. So I use the term for what is the Spirit of God bringing to the surface in terms of the church that He has since the birth of the church.

He included a quote from another book called "The Emerging Church", written in 1970 by Bruce Larson and Ralph Osborne:

If the church be true to its Lord, it may never properly say it has emerged.

Kimball is also working on a post describing how the term "emergent" recently developed. But the term "emerging" basically came from people who were on a mission to engage the culture:

...to my best remembrance it is Leadership Network back in the late 1990's who first began using the term and it spread from there to be used as a replacement word for the whole "Gen X" then "postmodern" then "emerging church" words of expressing a term for missionally minded churches wanting to engage culture for the gospel.

Labels: church, emerging

Did we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Here is my translation of strength: blood, sweat, and tears.

Are we willing to pay the price? The last time I checked, the reward in the parable of the talents wasn't an early retirement or extended vacation. The reward for good work was more work...

I love Matthew 11:12. Something about it riles me up inside! "From the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."

This is not for the faint of heart. But God has not given us a spirit of timidity!

Read more at www.evotional.com.

Labels: church

From perrynoble.com:

It saddens me that the church is no longer an agent of change in our society! We have became more concerned with who we are trying to keep rather than who we are trying to reach.

We have given more attention to how many we bury rather than how many we baptize.

We have become more concerned with what people are wearing than how messy their lives might be on the inside.

We have become more concerned with parliamentary procedure than focusing on what matters!

We have become more concerned with taking a vote rather than getting off our blessed assurance and loving a world that so desperately needs Jesus!

God has not called us to be "keepers of the aquarium" but rather "fishers of men."

Labels: church

From Thou Shalt Touch Lepers:

Jesus didn't intimidate people. He attracted people. His holiness didn't scare people away. Why? Because he wasn't holier-than-thou. His holiness was magnetic. You couldn't keep people away. That is why the word "crowd" is repeated 101 times in the gospels. People wanted to be around Jesus.

We need to bridge the gap between clergy and laity. Everybody is a minister! We need to bridge the gap between secular and sacred. Everything is scared. We need to bridge the gap between church and marketplace. The church belongs in the middle of the marketplace!

From Thou Shalt Offend Pharisees:

Here is a lesson some of you have learned the hard way: as your influence grows larger so does the target on your back. If you dare to be different you'll be criticized. That's a promise. And those criticisms will probably come from the religious establishment that is content with maintaining the status quo.

And more great stuff...

Is anybody else tired of reactive christianity that is more known for what it is against than what it is for?

I think there are two kinds of people: doers and critcizers.

Jesus was a doer.

The Pharisees were criticizers.

Read more at www.evotional.com.

Labels: church