christianity

Cheeky Saints

Many Christian families and churches dread the end of October as the days draw closer to Halloween.

I spent a good deal of time in Halloween blog post advocating for Christians to reclaim Halloween as Christian celebration. For those of you who follow a lectionary or liturgical calendar, November 4th is All Saints Sunday. I’m sure that there are Christians trying to make sense of these events for churches. Seeing Halloween through All Saint’s Day, Christians can remember loved ones and thank God for those who labored as saints of Christianity. There are a number of churches that hold fall festivals, trick or trunk events, or other safe trick or treat events.

Instead of drawing attention to Halloween as our culture does, through scary movies, gory displays, and haunted hay rides, we are going to spend some time honoring our loved ones who passed away on this All Saints Sunday. We will have a special time of remembrance for our personal ‘saints’ who have passed away. We did this last year in worship and it provided a very meaningful time of reflection.

Historically, All Saints Day was a way for Christians to remember martyrs and saints. Most protestants are uneasy with using the word “saint” because of Catholic theology and veneration of saints. The New Testament mentions ‘saint’ over 60 times. This Sunday, we will be talking about ‘cheeky saints.’ What is a cheeky saint?

Halloween, new

7 Reasons why a Christian can celebrate (and remake) Halloween

Can there be a Christian Halloween? Can a Christian celebrate Halloween, which honors ghouls, demons, ghosts, and everything that goes bump in the night dangerous or even evil?

Somewhere, in the halls of history, Halloween or All Hallows Eve, got hijacked. What started as a day to prepare for All Saints’ Day (November 1st), Halloween became a spooky, evil, and candy filled observance. The term “Halloween” from its beginnings, had nothing to do with any pagan or evil beliefs. The Christian festival All Hallows Eve morphed into our current term Hallowe’en.

The key in understanding of the origins of the term Halloween comes from the sense of what is “hallowed” or “holy”. In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray, “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name…” In the fourth century, John Chrysostom tells us that the Eastern church celebrated a festival in honor of all saints who died. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Christians celebrated “All Saints’ Day” formally.

How did Halloween become associated with evil spirits? When we look at history we discover:

More than a thousand years ago Christians confronted pagan rites appeasing the lord of death and evil spirits… the druids, in what is now Britain and France, observed the end of summer with sacrifices to the gods. It was the beginning of the Celtic year, and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves. The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks.

If the Christian observance of Halloween began with a religious focus, how can we reclaim and celebrate Halloween from its current feared status? Here are 7 ways Christians can take back Halloween:

Church Leadership, pastor

The Nature of Pastoral Ministry

Several bloggers are writing about a paradigm shift in pastoral ministry. The model of a pastoral ministry 60-80 hours a week is slowly changing and for good reason! Who can sustain their sanity, a family, and a job at that rate? Maybe that is why many people think of pastors as male, bald (or have bad hair), look disheveled, and are over weight. I know of some pastors that are literally killing themselves in their work by being at church four or five nights a week.

Three blog posts are worthy of your attention. My friend and fellow pastor Elizabeth Hagan recently wrote about “Being Off Duty as a Pastor” on her blog Preacher on the Plaza. Her piece was picked up by the Associated Baptist Press. Props to Elizabeth! Her most pointed comments might come to a surprise to many lay people:

But, as you might imagine, all of this can be quite weighty on a pastor when everyone expects him or her to be at everything. My week, as is the case with almost every pastor I know, is filled with hard choices of what invitations to accept (and don’t take this to mean I don’t want to be invited to things, I consider it an honor and an important part of my work, so I tell my church to keep them coming). If I say “no” to a birthday party or graduation ceremony or even an anniversary dinner, it doesn’t mean I don’t love my congregation.

Lewis Fellows

Lewis Fellows: Kansas City or Bust

This past week was crazy. I didn’t have any time to blog or tweet. I traveled to Kansas City, MO with the Lewis Fellows and spent some time with pastors of dynamic churches. When I returned to New York, I went back to the airport to welcome Gary Long, our retreat speaker. Saturday the church held our fall retreat on vision – an excellent time. Sunday was worship. As you can see, it was a pretty full couple of days.

I want to briefly share with you my Lewis Fellows experience. Tuesday, October 19 we visited Saint Andrew Christian Church (www.sacchome.org) and had a conversation with Senior Pastor Rev. Holly McKissick. Saint Andrew Christian Church is a Disciples of Christ church. Check out the church below:

As you can see, it looks more like a market than a church. Such a welcoming property and building. The church is only 20 years old and Holly is the founding pastor. Below, Holly is standing and we are meeting in the sanctuary. I loved this sanctuary. The building is only about 12 years old.

Holly comes out of the Southern Baptist tradition, but was ordained in the Disciples of Christ church. The sanctuary is welcoming and seating is structured in a “U”. Holly’s take on leadership was interesting. She talked about making mistakes, as all pastors do, but learning from them. She was honest and candid about her leadership and ministry.

Below is a pic of the cross that hangs in the sanctuary:

Church Leadership, Churches

Mainline Churches Deal with ‘No Shows’

A new report this week has left many mainline churches scratching their heads and wondering why church attendance has dropped. The four major mainline churches, the Episcopal Church in the USA, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian (PCUSA), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), have all experienced double digit drops in worship attendance. What is even more puzzling is that the ELCA has seen an increase in giving in the last 10 years.

Churches increased attendance in the last decade but lost in attendance numbers in this decade. What gives? The economy?

World Communion Sunday

World Communion & Mission Sunday

We have an incredible opportunity this Sunday to experience God in new ways at the First Baptist Church of Ballston Spa. This Sunday, October 3 is World Communion Sunday. What is World Communion Sunday? The National Council of Church explains:

The day has taken on new relevancy and depth of meaning in a world where globalization often has undermined peace and justice – and in a time when fear divides the peoples of God’s earth. On this day we celebrate our oneness in Christ, the Prince of Peace, in the midst of the world we are called to serve – a world ever more in need of peacemaking.

Churches from every denomination are taking part in this celebration of oneness in Christ. At FBC, we do communion a little differently this Sunday. We have four stations for communion, representing the four corners of the world, and we invite worshipers to visit one or all of the stations. The communion bread consists of different ethnic breads from around the world.

In addition, we have a special quest preacher from the American Baptist Churches International Ministries:

religion

Atheists Know More about Religion

In a recent Pew Religious study, atheists scored highest on a survey asking basic questions regarding religion. Even more surprising is the fact that some answered questions incorrectly when it came to facts about their own faith. The New York Times reports that on average respondents answered half of the questions incorrectly.

Atheists and agnostics scored the highest out of all respondents. Jews and Mormons scored the highest out of all religious groups. White Protestant Christians scored in the middle range.

How could Atheists out score all other religious groups in this simple religious test? It had to be the questions. The questions were too hard, right? Well, there were some basic questions like, “Where was Jesus born?” “Whose writings inspired the Protestant Reformation?” “Which Biblical figure led the exodus from Egypt?” The respondents answered in multiple choice form.

What conclusion can we reach about this study? Atheists know more about religion?

worship

Age Segregation in Church

In the last 30 years, age-segmented worship was an unforeseen effect of the contemporary worship movement within Christianity. What has developed in many (not all) churches are two worship services. A traditional service with older adults and a commentary service with younger adults. This results into a type of age segregation in congregations.

Rev. Tullian Tchividjian the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, TN is one ~~successful~~ example of a leader who end years of age-segmented worship in his churc.h This process was not easy for Tchividjian, but he gives us an important reality of age separation in worship:

The primary reason, though, that stylistic segregation in worship shrinks our souls is because it prevents us from knowing God deeply. The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself. This means the great tragedy of segregation isn’t so much that we see less of each other but that in separating from each other we see less of God. All of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.

Will we see a reversal of age segregation in worship services in churches in the United States?

Most likely, we will not see a drastic change. However, you will see a large minority of churches in the next 10 years beginning to have blended worship. Robert Webber, considered the father of modern blended worship, proclaimed in several books that the way to enrich our worship is through both the proven practices of our shared historical Christian heritage and modern approaches to worship.

Leonard Sweet, professor and author, continues to speak about the four keys to worship that is passionate and connects the people. No matter what the worship tradition, churches that are reaching people are doing four things “EPIC”:

Experiential – worshipers encounter the Divine
Participatory – worshipers do more than sit
Image Based – symbols and images are used
Connective – the worship connects people to people and people to God

At my church, we continue to slowly employ various forms of authentic Christian worship and music. We sing contemporary songs, hymns, responses, pray printed prayers, pray in silence, pray informally, gather, hear the word, use multimedia, use different ways to receive communion, use organ, piano, guitar, bass, choir, song leaders, and use a diverse mix of worship styles. It is a tension of beloved methods of worship and new.

The future of American churches depends on how church leaders can adapt and worship in authentic ways and not use gimmicks. Remember, Christ commanded us to make disciples, not converts. The glam of emotionally charged, arm twisting, and entertainment based worship tends to produce converts. We need richer worship practices.

People want to experience God. People want to have spiritual encounters with God and that can be done by including everyone: young, old, youth, children, black, white, gen-X, gen-y, and Baby Boomers. Let us end the segregation in worship by having a rich, diverse, and authentic worship that praises God and feeds the worshiper.

Bible

How to Throw Away a Bible

How do you throw away a Bible? After some saints of my church decided to clear out our Sunday School storage area (who wants to do that job?), an unusual question was posed. “What do we do with damaged Bibles?” I was not quite sure how to answer the question. I figured we could donate the Bibles to the Salvation Army or another religious non-profit.

After the damaged Bibles sat in a box outside of my office for a week, another church member asked about the Bibles. I told her that we were going to donate the Holy books. She picked up one of the Bibles and pages started fall out. “We are going to donate these? How do we through away a Bible?” The look on her face told me that these Bibles were not worthy to give to anyone and she was right. How can you tell others about Christ when the end of the book of Luke is missing?

How do you throw away a Bible? That question just seems wrong. I believe the proper question is, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles?” You cannot just burn them. I think. That just evokes images of Nazi Germany and book burning. A nutty pastor recently created a controversial event, “Burn a Koran Day.” Not the route we want to go here folks.

After some research, I discovered the answer to the question, “How do you properly dispose of damaged Bibles? The answer is:

Jesus

What Would Jesus Wear?

Hmmm... I think I'll wear my "Jesus is my homeboy" shirt today.

Many of us have heard of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) but how about WWJW (What Would Jesus Wear?) Check out this actual toy , on the right, that is sold in stores. I first thought this was a joke, but then I saw that you can buy this doll action figure for about $15. Based on this action figure, Jesus would wear just about anything. Including a 80’s boom box stereo (look close in the back ground) I’m glad to see a cross is there. I think.

Some may see this as sacrilegious, but I think it is a point of reference for commentary in our culture. No longer is Jesus off limits from commercialization. Sure “Christian” businesses make money of Jesus related digs, but now we see secular businesses making money off Jesus’ likeness. Trademark infringement anyone?

The likeness of Jesus and his apparel may not seem critically important to the average person. Christ spoke a few times about clothing, but never clear on what to wear. There are references to sharing clothing and being watchful of the Pharisees wearing their religious clothing in order to be seen.

Should we be concerned with what we wear?

sacrament

Guest Blogger: Tripp Hudgins the AngloBaptist

Part III: Sacrament vs. Ordinance: Guest Blogger, Tripp Hudgins (AngloBaptist). Check out Part I & Part II.

Alan generously asked me to participate in this blog series on Baptist sacramentality and immediately I said yes. I wanted to chime in. But it took me a while to figure out how I could share my thoughts. As a baptist, I think the testimony might be the best mode of communication in this instance. I hope you will all bear with me.

I was in seminary listening to a lecture on the Eucharistic Prayer, that traditional prayer that many denominations use when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. We were walking through some of the history, form, and theological function of the prayer and when we got to the epiclesis I had an epiphany. Really, one hopes for an epiphany at the epiclesis, but how often does that happen? And yet, there it was. Whammo!

The epiclesis is the part of the longer Eucharistic Prayer (aka anaphora) where the presider (priest or pastor, typically) prays for the Holy Spirit to be present in the elements at the table. I was listening with Baptist ears on as my Episcopal professor explained the historical use of this prayer. I was on the lookout for magical thinking, or mechanistic ballyhoo. None. Zilch. Nada. Then…Then it hit me.

Hold on! What are all the elements present at the table for communion? Bread, wine (or juice), a presider of some sort, and, well…the people. The gathered faithful, The Body of Christ, are present at the table of the Lord! Don’t baptists believe that the Holy Spirit transforms us? Don’t we believe that we are somehow renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit? Don’t we pray that God would be present in our hearts? Isn’t this the same thing? Is this baptist sacramentality?

Evangelism

Why No One Likes Evangelism

Over the years, I have encountered many Christians who do not feel comfortable with evangelism. Loosely, evangelism is the process in which Christians seek to convert or share the Gospel of Christ to others. When you say the word “evangelism” at a church meeting, thoughts of door knocking, Bible tracks, and street preaching come to mind.

Guy Kent at the Good Preacher/Homiletical Hot Tub blog, posted a funny telling of a Charlie Brown cartoon:

A Charlie Brown cartoon once had Lucy proclaiming to Charlie Brown, “I would make a good evangelist.”

Charlie Brown responds, “And why do you think that?”

“Well, I convinced the boy who sits behind me in school that my religion is better than his religion.”

Now Charlie Brown is intrigued. “How did you do that?”

Lucy tells him, “I hit him over the head with my lunch box!”

The “hit’em over the head” approach is often seen as the worst example of evangelism. These days, post modernity has made us shy about sharing our faith. Anyone who holds to an absolute truth is a nut or is too rigid. Isn’t there a better way?

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