2012

social media

The edgy Christian media startup you need to check out

More and more, Christian media outfits try to create their own social media platforms to get noticed. However, a new edgy social media startup, “Sogo” is taking a different route on social media to get their message out.

Sogo describes itself as: Sogo Media Tv – a new kind of Christian television network that uses the exploding platform of YouTube to distribute exclusive videos from an impressive collective of progressive Christian voices, as well as curates the religion and spirituality niche on YouTube. Founded in 2012, Sogo is short for “social Gospel,” a play on words that also refers to “social media + Gospel message.”

If you have ever been on GodTube or FaithVillage, you know those are specially Christian websites for Christians to share Christian content. Many Christian social media platforms want to create their brand of Christian media because of concerns of secular culture’s negative affects on social media. Sogo doesn’t seem interested in creating an alternate platform for its content, but rather desires to use the existing and popular YouTube instead.

Brian McLaren, who was one of TIME magazine’s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals”, agreed to be a contributor. McLaren lauded the new startup, Continue Reading…

Evangelicals

How Evangelicals can lead the way now

After the 2012 elections, Franklin Graham stated on CNN that our nation is on a “path of destruction” due to the 2012 election results. In addition Graham said, “If we are allowed to go down this road in the path that this president wants us to go down, I think it will be to our peril end to the destruction of this nation.”

This is troubling talk from one of the most powerful Evangelicals. Millions of Christians regularly take Graham’s lead on matters of politics and moral issues.

This is not the way to lead Christians to reach out and bring about the Kingdom of God. Let me explain.

Graham’s comments on CNN were noble, but there is a better way to change the future of America. His ministry organizations actively block movements in states that try to legalize same sex marriage, fight for prayer to return to schools, and encourage legislation that forbids abortions. Graham’s ministry and organizations regularly court politicians to enact his biblical interpretation on certain issues as civil law. By doing this, Graham only alienates the very people we Christians are trying to reach.

Franklin Graham and I are fellow ministers, evangelicals, and preachers of the Gospel. I thank Graham for his service to our nation and to other nations around the world. His relief organizations continuing give aid to developing nations. I support a number of these organizations. Graham’s heart is for God’s and I commend him for that. He wants to see the world and our nation to come to know Jesus Christ. I agree. Graham wants for Christians to carry out the message of the Bible. I agree. He wants the world to know God. I agree.

However, Graham and I disagree about how to go about making these common Kingdom goals realities. The only way to turn others to Christ is not through our political process, but through a Kingdom Process.

Jesus did not come to lobby Rome, Paul didn’t appeal to political leaders in Athens, and Peter didn’t hold political fundraisers for kings. Christian leaders in the New Testament did not use a political system as a means to achieve moral and societal change. Instead, they ate, sat, discussed, lived, and created space for their detractors. They didn’t alienate those who they were preaching to with hateful speech or disdain. People loved Jesus because he was the only rabbi that would give them to time of day and listen to them.

Tom McCrossan, another fellow minister, and life long Republican to add, provided a helpful perspective of what is occurring with Christians who want change through politics:

Christianity

How not to vote on Election Day

Alas, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are blowing up with political jabs that mostly rely on ad-hominem attacks that play into people’s confirmation bias of a candidate.

No candidate is immune from a little ad-hominem attack against their opponent. Unfortunately, some voters like and even enjoy when Facebook posts, media stories, or social pictures vilify a political candidate. And unfortunately, some of these voters call themselves Christians who create or share these messages. Some Christians think they are doing their duty to pass along these ugly messages.

It is really disheartening to see such poor treatment of those who differ in political ideology. My perspective on this election is not about me telling you who you should vote for, but how not to vote: Continue Reading…

All Saints, Halloween

Halloween does not have to be evil

Every year on Halloween many Americans become anxious. Not from the possibility of their houses being “toilet papered” or “egged”, but from sinister evil that lurks on this devilish holiday. It wasn’t long ago that we told kids to be on the lookout for razors in candy.

So much of Halloween’s harrowing tales are ingrained from movies and television, in which malevolent characters on a quest for death and destruction: scary masked men, evil spirits, or a machete yielding murderer runs a muck. Many people enjoy the thrill of a scary movie and see Halloween as benign but others truly believe Halloween to be an evil affair.

Some of the supposed origins of Halloween came from a pre-medieval Celtic pagan festival, Samhain. Those who celebrated this festival on the heels of the summer, believed that the world of the living and the dead were thinly divided on or about October 31. Agricultural duties were carried out to prepare for winter. Some rituals were preformed to placate evil spirits. It is difficult to know what exactly happened during Samhain because we do not have any credible ancient first-hand accounts. Later pagans and Celtic people recaptured the festival in other localized traditions.

The word “Halloween” has nothing to do with Samhain or evil occult practices. Early Christians contextualized European winter celebrations into All Saints Day as a way to remember and honor faithful Christian saints. The day before All Saints was celebrated as “All Hallows Eve” and the phrase morphed into Hallowe’en or just Halloween. Modern celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Epiphany are all contextualized holidays that honor Christian beliefs. Local pagan practices were replaced with Christian ones, in order to help express Christ in local forms to local peoples. By separating All Hallows Eve from the pre-Christian practices, Christians can take comfort in understanding the historical Christian remembrance that is associated with All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day.

Leadership

Change: 12 Guidelines for Deciding When to Persist, When to Quit

Kanter’s Law: “Everything can look like a failure in the middle.”

Navigating change or transformation within an organization or church is a challenge, but when it time for a new ideas to hit the road? What is a good yard stick to measure a new program, ministry, or initiative? How can organizations and churches evaluate success? Often, there is a messy middle where the future is uncertain and evaluation is difficult.

The Harvard Business Review has an excellent piece on how to evaluate the effectiveness of new plans or ideas.What I like best about these guidelines is that they ask the right questions instead of using a specific school of thought through a per-packaged paradigm:

blog

Pregnancy from rape is not God’s intent

By now you have heard of Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Republican Senate candidate who said in a debate:

“I just struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize: Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

The backlash from these comments have been swift and harsh. Mourdock was quick to distance himself from his comments. He stated that his comments were used to politically advantage his opponent. The problem with this whole story is not necessarily about abortion, but about rape. Did Mourdock mean that rape is intended to happen or that life is intended to happen?

At a dinner for GOP leaders Mourdock said: Continue Reading…

Church Leadership, clergy burnout, Leadership

Why your church staff burnout

Has the slower US economy stretched our work force too thin and caused higher rates of burn out?

According to a new survey, 1 in 5 employees are burned out from their job. The USA Today reported the findings just how people feel about their work:

Since last year, the most significant growth in work priorities is no longer accomplishing basic responsibilities or improving their performance, but just showing up. “Being present” was the most important priority cited by 22% of workers — a 47% increase since the survey began in 2003 and a jump of 3 percentage points since last year.

Do we want people to just “show up” to work or feel empowered?

October is clergy appreciation month in many denominations and this brings added awareness to the epidemic of burnout in churches. In ministry employment, the problem of “pastoral burnout” is well noted, but many churches do little to combat it. Smartphones and social media have increased pastoral burnout, as The New York Times highlighted this problem back in 2010:
Continue Reading…

blog

Election Day Communion

Now that the Presidential debates are over, millions of people will be heading to the polls. One of the key voting blocks will have an opportunity to make their vote a spiritual act.

Election Day Communion, a movement started by several pastors, is encouraging congregations and Christians to head to the communion table after heading to the polls. Evangelicals, a targeted demographic by Republicans, are often noted for their conservative stance on political issues. Now, all Christians will have the opportunity to unite around The Table instead of being divisive. Insuring that Election Day Communion does not get partisan, the movement does not endorse a candidate or party.

The movement’s website describes how Election Day Communion started:

Facebook

Why do you love the Devil?

I stopped in at the Albany Times Union this week and had lunch with one of the editors there. I have developed some great friendships with a number of reporters and staff. I bumped into Mark McGuire.No not that Mark McQwire but the Times Union’s Mark McGuire. We chatted about sports, college, and life. Then, he showed me this Facebook picture making the rounds:

At first, I thought it was a fake and said, “That has to be a joke. I mean, that’s not real. Who would make something like that?”

What confused me were the phrases “emo’s”, “high fullutent”, and “sport’s nut’s”. Those are typically not the type of people who are persecuted by ugly self-righteous Christians. That just doesn’t make sense. Plus, the incorrect use of the possessive (‘s).

If real, this type of ugly proselytizing is not real evangelism. To use offensive words to persecute folks and then tell them to repent and that they need Jesus is just ugly. Jesus reserved his harshest words not for sinners, but for the religious hypocrites.

This Fred Phelps type of tactic is not about turning people to Jesus but is an attempt to taunt and bring attention to the protestor.

What’s the back story on this? Anyone else seen this picture of Facebook?

politics, Presidential debate

Will faith make an appearance at tonight’s presidential debate?

With a record number of “nones” or religiously unaffiliated Americans (20%) possibly voting in the 2012 election, I wonder: will we hear about faith tonight at the Presidential debate? Mitt Romney, a Mormon and Barack Obama, a Protestant are vying for millions of religious voters.

The town hall-style debate voters will ask questions of the candidates and each candidate will be able to respond.

You might remember that at the end of the Vice-Presidential debate, we heard from the candidates about how they saw their faith:

“I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith,” said Ryan. “Our faith informs us in everything we do.”

“My religion defines who I am,” said Biden. “I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life.”

Michelle Boorstein, at the Washington Post posted an interesting argument: Continue Reading…

worship

A Theology for Announcements in Worship

A church member greeted me after a church service in my usual location, the back exit. I embraced her and wished her a blessed week. She had strange look on her face and said, “You know, I really don’t like announcements at the end of worship. It really takes away the momentum of service and deflates it. I don’t know how to solve that. But then again, that’s your job!” She laughed.

She was right.The obligatory church announcement time was situated in an awkward place in the worship service.

In some churches, multiple people make a multitude of announcements and service drags on. If inserted in the beginning of worship, a number of people don’t hear the announcements because they are still walking into worship. If placed at the end of worship, announcements can take the wind out of a great service. Announcements are odd to have at the end of worship, but it is often the only place the majority of the congregation can hear of something important.

Do announcements belong in worship anyway? Continue Reading…

Culture, politics, religion, spirituality, the nones

Why the nones are leaving church, but not God

nones

It should make any established American denomination panic: the dramatic increase in number of Americans leaving organized religion. In 2007, the percentage of the religious unaffiliated was around 15% and now that number is around 20% according to a new Pew study. In the last 20 years, the religiously unaffiliated or “nones” have doubled.

Before churches and denominations panic, this study does not prove people are leaving behind their belief in God – just the church.

There are a few things we need to remember. This poll, as with any poll, asked questions that may have not accurately described the respondents. The Washington Post reports,

Pew offered people a list of more than a dozen possible affiliations, including “Protestant,” “Catholic,” “something else” and “nothing in particular.”

Those “possible affiliations” are terms that may no longer apply. I’m routinely amazed how Christians incorrectly refer to other Christian denominations as “religions”. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other Christian traditions are not separate faith systems, but sects of Protestant Christianity. Such semantics usually do not bother the average Christian, but it highlights how religious people often misunderstand or misuse terms and affiliations. This follows the pattern of Christians and disenfranchised Christians who dislike being labeled with added denominational titles. Such titles are innocuous and most Americans cannot tell you the difference between a Reformed church and an Episcopal church.

Does all this mean Americans aren’t religious people anymore?

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