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Christianity

The Amazonification of Christianity

Amazon announced a new product and service to their line-up: Amazon Key. Amazon describes their new product as the way to, “get your Amazon packages securely delivered just inside your front door. Plus, grant access to the people you trust, like your family, friends, dog walker, or house cleaner.” This is one of many products that have taken over our lives by Amazon or also known as the Amazonification of retail… and life.

Amazon has started putting large retailers out of business. With their free two-day delivery with Amazon Prime, tablets that push notifications of sales, Echo devices that can order Amazon products, and other devices that can order via their website, Amazon has put their delivery method in the hands and heads of people around the world. Amazon has created a virtual e-commerce ecosystem that we can’t escape. Now, Amazon is testing drones to deliver products faster. Amazon not only sells products but now services of professional cleaning, installation, plumbing and more on their website.

This is a takeover of Amazon’s brand force. It’s the Amazonification of life: a total and complete delivery system of goods, services, and information. Amazon has disrupted the way people get their “stuff”.

Amazon’s virtual staying power taps into something that is happening in every facet of our lives: virtual delivery and engagement of life… including our faith. Amazon shows us how Christianity has been disrupted by factors and forces of our technological and mobile connected world.

Lent

What Twitter is giving up for Lent

In case you were still working on what you are giving up or for Lent, the 2015 results of the top 100 Lenten sacrifices are in (according to Twitter).

With about 646,000 tweets analyzed, the hot topic “school” is currently out in front, with chocolate, swearing and alcohol in the top 5. Christianity Today gave an in-depth analysis, here.

Stephen Smith of OpenBible.info’s running list of the top 100 most-mentioned Lenten sacrifices (both serious and cynical) in 2015: Continue Reading…

social media

Twitter reveals top 100 Lenten sacrifices

In case you were still working on what you are giving up or for Lent, Christianity Today reports top 100 choices according to Twitter:

With about 5,000 tweets analyzed, the new hot topics so far this year are: “Netflix,” “Flappy Bird,” and “Getting an Oscar.” “Social Networking” is currently way out in front, with twice as many tweets as perennial favorites “Swearing” and “Alcohol.” (Last year, Social Networking came in at #4.)

Here is Stephen Smith of OpenBible.info’s running list of the top 100 most-mentioned Lenten sacrifices (both serious and cynical) in 2014, followed by top categories:

social media

The social media blackout

Social media can take a toll on your life. Keeping up with Facebook, Twitter, and other networking sites is exhausting.

On average Americans spend just as much time on the Internet (13 hours a week) as they do watching television. That adds up to 26 hours — a little more than a day of our week — spent in front of a screen.

We can suffer from social media. Managing several social media accounts while holding down a job and life can be taxing. Social media is a world of instant communication and demand. We can’t possibly keep up with the check-ins, pictures, internet memes, Words with Friends, internet news, and Twitter trends.

Sometimes, we need a social media blackout. Usually, a social media blackout happens when a company or celebrity has an embarrassing moment and they go silent on Facebook and/or Twitter. Example: Anthony Weiner, and his… ahem, Twitter problem. After everything went down, Weiner went silent on his active Twitter account.

The social media blackout I’m thinking about isn’t because we have done something wrong but because we need a break.

Taking breaks or sabbath is a requirement in life. Just as our bodies need rest, our minds do too. From time to time we need a mental health day. A day where we disconnect from the craze of the world and focus on things that we love. Walking, reading, spending time with family, or going to a movie are all things that help us refocus.

Taking a social media blackout from the dependence on technology harks back to the day when humans relied on their own skills and gifts. A social media blackout helps us to realize that meaningful connections are made through relationships, not digital networking. True love and friendship are found with time spent together, and not through a computer.

For the next two days I’m doing a social media blackout. No Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, or Foursquare check-ins. I’m going to a monastery to do some reading and writing. To recharge.

Do you need a social media blackout? How have you taken a social media break? What practices do you find meaningful during a social media blackout?

Culture

Jesus, the original hipster?

A new ad aimed at making Jesus more culturally relevant has a major church working to re-brand the image of Jesus.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn started a campaign that is gaining national attention. The ad has captured the attention of pop culture with picturing Jesus as the “original” hipster. Apparently Chuck Taylor All Stars are the key to making Jesus hip:

Apparently Converse’s “Chuck Taylor” sneakers are a favorite choice of footwear of both the Pope and Jesus Christ. And why shouldn’t they be? They are comfortable, colorful, and according to Seth Meyers in his SNL Weekend Update, are why more Catholics are returning to church.

Catholics yearn for a Church they can relate to. That is what Seth Meyers was jokingly referencing, and that is what the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s new “All Faces, Everyday Understanding” marketing campaign is trying to achieve.

This isn’t the first time we have seen a hipster Jesus in print. In 2012, Time Magazine featured a modern looking Jesus on its front cover.

Is this ad simply a fun attention getter or a real attempt to bring young people into the pews? According to CNN, the ad has helped the Brooklyn Diocese’s website to see traffic increase by 400%. Certainly, a metric of tracking interest.

Ads like these help generate discussion and interest, but will that translate into more people in churches? Most likely not. Posting an ad on the streets will not solely translate into the masses attending church. Other changes need to be made in order to reach young people. Investment in young people in church ministry requires a coordinated effort.

As for Jesus as the original hipster, he certainly hung out with outcasts and not with popular people. That certainly made Jesus cool to the least of these. Perhaps that means he is attractive to young people today.

Discussion: Is this ad a real way to win young people back to church or is it all hype?

mission

A garden center, a sign, and the missional church

My parents used to tell me that first impressions matter. So my mom always kept a very clean house in the chance someone came to visit or if I or my sister brought a friend home unexpectedly from school. My dad always keep the cars clean and the yard mowed. We always had clean clothes and reasonable times between haircuts. Probably not much different from your family.

Organizations also present “first impressions” with their buildings, employees who welcome, or the cleanliness of the facility. The front door might be one of the most important features of these organizations. Here are a few front doors I have come across in Midwest stores recently.

This is posted on a sliding door into a business. This store is a large chain and is located in the upper middle class section of town with low crime. Nothing about this sign says to me I am welcome to shop there. I have never seen a sign like this on any other business, that does not mean do not exist but I have never noticed one. I just found it to be a weird notice and felt it to be unnecessarily hostile.

This is a welcoming place. It has the clearly marked sign open, the door is open, and the hours are posted. There is plants that greet you from the parking lot to the door letting you know that this place holds a variety of , trees, flowers, porch/deck furniture, and other yard DYI things. But what you see outside is only a small taste of what is on the inside. The staff don’t just grow plants in a bucket. They are gardeners as well. They are capable of listening to garden ideas and advising how to proceed because they live in both places.

Churches have signs as well. Our churches often put up intentional or unintentional signs up with our actions. Perhaps they act like the fist sign. Your life will be scrutinized here. We will judge you and use a filter process to decide if you are like us. We will examine every aspect of your life until we are satisfied you look, sound, and act like we think you should. If you do not agree to these terms you are free to leave the facility.

What if our church and the way it functions looked more like this garden center? What if we were more inviting and welcoming? What would it look like if we could find the balance between being welcoming to all and strong in our Christian identity? What if we found a way to interpret and discern what God is doing in the world? A missional church needs to examine their church “signs”. What signal are they sending?

Much like the garden center, there is a a need for churches to have a welcoming presence with their building, signage, and people. The church must missionally welcome people and empower others to action. The missional church needs to have a welcoming presence of hospitality and be able to discern how God is calling us to act. God is at work cultivating our missional gardens and we need to realize what it takes to welcome and send others into his vineyard.

Associate Pastor

Three simple ways to appreciate your associate pastor

Associate pastors, youth ministers, and other staff ministers often do the unglamorous jobs of ministry without much recognition. Associates have a calling and a title, but they often do not preach, must attend church meetings, and juggle several responsibilities which may be unrelated to their job description. It can be a thankless job.

As I wrote about in my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor (Judson Press), Senior pastors and church leaders need to recognize the special nature and challenges of associates. They spend many hours doing unappreciated jobs that senior pastors would rather not do: long retreat weekends, spending time with youth, and responding to congregant complaints when the senior pastor is not around. Churches will be better served if they appreciate and recognize their associate minister’s work.

Since associates are often undercompensated to begin with, senior pastors and church leadership can show appreciation through simple actions. Recognizing their standing and place in the church will enable an associate’s longevity and self-esteem. Here’s how you can show your appreciation:

Appreciation through pulpit time. Many senior pastors guard their pulpit as if they were guarding Fort Knox. Let go! Give your associate an opportunity to preach. Some senior pastors worry that handing over the pulpit may lead to parishioners liking the associate more. Nelson Mandela once said, “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” Congregations will see a senior pastor’s strong leadership by allowing associates to take center stage. It shows that the senior has good skills in developing talented leaders by letting the associate take center stage for a short while.

Appreciation through quality time with the senior pastor. It’s easy for the senior pastor to go through their week and forget to meet or spend time with the associate. Senior pastors have to worry about budgets, administration, church meetings, pastoral calls, and sermon preparation. However, they should be sure to carve out quality time with associates. Taking associates to lunch, going to conferences together, or any time that can be spent together away from church will lead to greater trust and mutual appreciation.

Appreciation through loyalty. Church folk may think loyalty goes up the chain of command but it also goes down. If an associate makes a mistake, defend the associate. Then, in private, talk to the associate about what happened and provide encouragement. Being loyal to an associate pastor means publicly thanking and backing up the associate’s work in ministry. Duffy Robbins, youth ministry guru, once said, “If you are not making mistakes in ministry you are not trying hard enough.” Loyalty is about preserving relationship over failures and celebrating successes.

Aside from the obvious pay raise, these three simple acts of appreciation will go a long way in the eye of your associate and will bless your church’s ministry. Building confidence through appreciation will make for healthy church staff dynamics and will aid an associate’s work as a fellow minister.

Do you have associate or assistant ministers in your church? Are you an associate pastor? Get a copy of my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor. This valuable resource will set associates and churches up for success.

front, new, sub1, Unvirtuous Abbey

A Bunch of (un)virtuous Monks

Church and religion doesn’t have to be stuffy and boring. Several monks prove that. Enter the Unvirtuous Abbey. A bunch of monks give us everything regrettable about Christianity, culture, people, and Facebook but make us laugh at it… in a good way. The Unvirtuous Abbey ministers to people from their Facebook and Twitter page with funny and some serious tweets and updates. Some proclaim them virtuous and others unvirtuous. I took some time to sit down with these humorous monks to see what makes them tick. You be the judge:

You monks have some very funny and very serious prayers on Twitter and Facebook. Where do you receive inspiration?

What’s become evident is how many people have been hurt by religion/church. We wondered, “What if there were unapologetic monks who actually stood up to religious bullies? And what if we threw in a bit of ‘snark’ just to make it fun and interesting?”

Humour has incredible power. Religion has the capacity to be hurtful, and many people have used it was a weapon. It’s fun mashing up cultural references with Jesus. Of course Jesus didn’t have a magic sword, but it’s interesting to put him in that scenario:

Jesus held aloft his magic sword and said, “By the power of Grayskull!” And they spake unto one another, saying, “He has the power.”

The truth is, he does.

Your prayers mention WiFi, beer, fanny packs, Harry Potter, tattoos, and Joel Osteen. Is this what makes the monks “unvirtuous”?
Continue Reading…

worship

Does My Church Look Like a Warehouse?

For the last 20 or 25 years, it has become popular a church to build their worship and ministry space to look like a warehouse or storehouse (or use an actual warehouse). After being a part of three capital improvement projects at three different churches, I have found there is a whole theology to church buildings.

The “Emergent” or “Emerging Church” and ultra contemporary church movement has found that many people are attracted to buildings that do not include religious symbols. And, church buildings should be more utilitarian than religious. Most of the time, building a church in a warehouse is an economical way to do church. Aside from the “store front” church, churches who desire to tone down a worship space do so for marketing reasons. Mega and ultra contemporary churches try to draw in burned out Christians or seekers (the unchurched) who want church to be different than the traditional church service (3 hymns, sermon, and altar call).

Christianity Today wrote an intriguing article about how there is now a reverse trend in trying to attract seekers to churches. The trend seems to be that now seekers and churches are reconsidering what they thought they wanted in a church building. The article cites a survey which states that seekers prefer a church to look like, well… a church. The article reads:

….unchurched adults prefer Gothic church buildings to utilitarian ones, challenging the conventional wisdom that medieval-looking churches feel out-of-touch and stuffy to seekers. LifeWay showed over 1,600 unchurched adults four pictures of church buildings, ranging from mall-like to Gothic. The majority preferred the most ornate church.

Not exactly scientific, but this survey shows that deep down inside, a church’s building says a lot about how the church sees itself regarding theology, evangelism, and Christ. This study came out of LifeWay, the publishing and ministry arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

It is my firm belief that people want to seek the Divine in church community and in worship. Based on anecdotal evidence, I have found that there is a segment of the church going population, who after several years at a ultra contemporary/mega church, desire to recapture the essence of what it means to worship, learn, live in faith, and fellowship in a congregation that seeks to be more dynamic and deeper in their approach. Over the years, I have been a big fan of Robert Webber, who died recently. Webber who began life as a Baptist and then switched denominations to become an Episcopalian, rediscovered liturgical worship with a contemporary twist. In his book, Ancient-Future Faith he states:

Worship Renewal, then, is not a matter of gimmicks, but the recovery of the Christian vision of reality enacted by the community of God. pg. 32

Then, Webber goes on to say:

In the 1980’s evangelicals sought to neutralize space to make the seeker more comfortable. This worked in the 1980’s but is not the way to go in the postmodern world. The inquirer needs to be immersed within a space that bespeaks the Christian faith. The very narrative of faith which we seek to know and live is symbolically expressed in our space… Space becomes the visual image of the connection between the known and unknown. pg. 108

For Webber, and I agree, worship and our church buildings communicate who God is. Symbols are important. Symbols point to a great reality. The cross is a symbol. The communion table is a symbol. The church is a symbol. If we neutralize a church space, then are we neutralizing the symbol of the church? Postmodernity has indeed reshaped our understanding. Webber addresses the church within postmodernity:

In a postmodern world that has become increasingly interested in communication and space, it will be necessary to feature the relational seating of God people around the symbols of water, the pulpit, and the Table. These are the primary visual images of God’s work in the history of salvation. pg. 108

I have a number of engaged couples who come from other churches looking for a church to get married in because their church does not “look” like a church. They do not worship in a traditional looking church, but they want to get married in one. That just shows how our culture is evolving and how Christians view worship space.

Churches and pastors should resist the empty showy gimmicks and trendy ideas about church and worship. Instead, we must seek to put a theology behind our church and church buildings instead of only relying on marketing tactics. There is a richness contained in the 2,000 years of worship, teaching, and theology that the church mothers and fathers have given to us. There is nothing “wrong” with a contemporary church that meets in a warehouse, but the trend of the lack of Christian symbols and lack of focus upon theologically centered worship space is troubling. When churches are able, they should think about building or obtaining a worship space that reflects Christian theology. I should make it clear that many people have come to Christ in these trendy churches and these churches are meeting a need. But, at some point, people are going to want more than flashy lights, loud bands, and Starbucks.

What do you think?

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