December 2006

Sanford and Son, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, and Mary Tyler Moore.  All great shows from my youth.  As a kid, I couldn’t wait for Friday and Saturday night television shows.  It was a family event.  We would eat pizza, pop popcorn, sit around the ONE color television set we had (without cable) and wait for the shows to begin at 7pm concluding with the Carol Burnett show from 9-10pm before we went off to bed while Mom and Dad stayed up later watching the news and part of the early days of Saturday Night Live in the mid to late 70’s.

My reason for the quick reminiscing is two-fold.  As a church planter, I value my time with my family and I think the shows matter to me as much for the laughs we shared as a family but also because of the memory I associate with them.  Let’s not forget that as we head in 2007.  Time is so short and it seems it moves faster these days than 30 years ago when I was 10. 

My second reason?  I had to laugh today as I read the news about the shows that are dying off as the networks cut and paste for the new year.  Here are the shows that are saying good bye tonight….

Alias (ABC)
Arrested Development (Fox)
Emily’s Reasons Why Not (ABC)
Everwood (WB)
Joey (NBC)
Starting Over (Syndicated)
That 70’s Show (Fox)
Vanished (Fox)
The West Wing (NBC)
Yes, Dear (CBS)

Outside of “That 70’s Show” I didn’t watch a single episode of any of the others.  Boy am I glad my eyesight’s still good enough to read good books!

Happy New Year!

Well, we made it through the second snowstorm in just over a week here in the Denver metropolitan area.  Thankfully, the second wave wasn’t quite as bad as originally predicted.  We were hit locally with about eight inches or so with some 12-18 inch drifts.  Further north and west, the snowfall amounts were a bit more significant.  14-18 inches in Boulder and nearly two feet in the foothills.  Regardless, it slowed things down again Friday and I spent another day outside shoveling.  I don’t think I could get a better workout anywhere than my front driveway the past few weeks.

On to other things….

Saddam Hussein is dead.  Reaction from around the globe is mixed and of course, France and Germany, loyal friends of the U.S. as they are, are stating they were against the whole thing.  I wonder if France felt that way when we were losing many men during World War II when Hitler was readying to conquer Paris and these same French were preparing to read “Mein Kampf” as the book of the month club selection?  Time has a way or erasing old memories.

Bombs went off in Spain again today.  I thought when they pulled their troops out of Iraq all of that was supposed to stop?  I wonder what their liberal government will do to correct this?  They can’t fight back since that’s what they were opposed to so perhaps sending some milk and cookies to the Basque ETA group will smooth things over. 

Has Hamas released those Israeli soldiers it illegally took before the Israelis started bombing Lebanon and the Bush administration got blamed for that too?  I thought Kofi Annan had brokered a peace settlement for BOTH sides and not just one?  Oh yeah, he’s out of office counting his oil for food money from Saddam.  Funny how these things go full circle.

Enough political talk.  It makes my head spin to see the double standard applied to American interests in the International arena.  If you don’t think any of this affects Christians and the Christian movement then you’re not eating your corn flakes my friend!

On to Christian news…

It appears the pastor at the large Southern Baptist church Adrian Rogers used to pastor in Memphis, Tennessee is under siege for concealing information about sexual affairs that are decades old and just now coming to light.  I’ve read the stories and I wonder why a seminary president is sticking his nose into the matter to make things worse.  Chapter and verse please?  And no, don’t give me any of those wise old sage texts from the scripture as your reasoning.  Leave it up to the leadership of the church to handle things.  I wonder if the late Rev. Rogers knew about any of this?  What would the reaction have been then?

As I read blogs mainly by church planters (since that’s what I am) and other solid Christian sites, I see many new books being published by the same folks.  Sadly, many are not dealing with the issue of salvation and repentance and what means we should be using to bring the issue to light.  Most are just “Seize the Day” feel goods that I’ve already read by other authors several years ago.  The language is a bit more ‘hip’ and the stories more modern but I’ve already read this stuff.  Do yourself a favor.  Skip the new stuff for a bit and pick up a copy of “An Alarm to the Unconverted” by Joseph Alleine.  The book was written in the 17th century as a treatise to the unsaved sinner and has been edited slightly to update the english language without losing any of the “spice” of the original.  Alleine died young but his fervor for genuine life change and true salvation as opposed to “relationships” and “consideration” as a measure of success is something that should challenge all of us.  Sometimes we get so caught up in “connecting” and “relevance” that we forget the ultimate end to those endeavors; rallying rather around the preliminaries instead of the payoff, which is transformed lives.   This point was again brought home to me as I led a 93 year old woman to Christ on Tuesday, December 19th and then heard of her passing less than 24 hours later.  To hear the elderly woman barely breathing (she had removed her oxygen to pray with me) and to hear her have only the energy to say “I love you Jesus” over and over again as I led her in prayer brought tears to my eyes as the reality of eternal life hit me smack in the forehead.  I had the honor of doing this woman’s funeral Thursday morning and celebrated with the family for her home-going!

Well, I could type more…but my brain aches.  Have blessed worship this weekend and remember, It’s all about Jesus!

The Denver area is getting ready to be hit hard again with another snowstorm.  Heavy snow is falling as I write this with a brief lull expected tonight and then more heavy snow tomorrow (Friday).  Snow will again be measured in feet and not inches!  Wow.  We’re still digging out from last week’s blizzard and trying to cope with side roads with deep ruts that are tearing up cars.  My prayer is that the stuff ends before our year-end service Sunday.  We’re also planning to take our teens our for overnight glow-in-the-dark bowling that night so this snow could hamper a lot of plans.

Oh well, I guess if it hits us hard again, I’ll have to play another round of “Aggravation” with my kids.  That and “Yahtzee” took up most of our time last week.

Pray for us and for those families preparing for round two of our 2006 blizzard.  I’m off to wash the french press and make some hot Peets coffee!

Living in Denver does has its advantages!  I’ve spent the last few days holed up in my home office as life slowly returns to normal in the Mile High City after Wednesday’s blizzard that dumped over two feet of snow in the metropolitan areas and closer to four feet in the mountains.  The picture above is one I found as I was browsing this evening and shows one of our local churches with some heavy icicles not to mention that deep snow drifting nearly up to the window.  The Denver airport reopened this afternoon and my family and I were actually able to dig a trench wide enough for my wife to get her van out of the garage so she could get to work this evening after her workplace shut down for two days due to the storm’s effects.

The past few days have given me some time to reflect.  It seems I’m always on my way to somewhere but with my travels bluntly put to a halt by the storm, I was actually able to spend some quality time with the kids playing a few board games (Aggravation is still fun after all these years), doing a little work on my sermon for Sunday, and thinking back about all that we’ve accomplished as a church in 2006.  For those who don’t know much about me, we started in a small building badly in need of repair.  In a few years, we were able to remodel the building and sell it in 2005.  In January of this year, we made the move to a local charter school in our area which was located in a growing area of our region.  I felt we could make some great headway here and in some respects we have.  We’ve put together what I believe is one of the best sound systems and video displays of any church in our region, especially those in rented facilities.  It’s been hard though because we’ve not added many new families this first year.  I’m not sure if God was just wanting us to get used to our new location and all that goes into a set up and tear down church but I must admit, I was a bit depressed that we hadn’t grown significantly more than what we did but I look forward to 2007 and what lies ahead.

As I’ve stated before, we have to be careful as church planters that we don’t get caught up in the worldly ways we equate success.  I admit at times I have because I’ve wondered why one church seems to be growing and one doesn’t.  I’m not the only one with this dilemma.  On the other hand, I see many churches that seem to compromise in areas where I feel we have to be solid with the life-giving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That can’t be us.  I know what we’ve been called to and I’m more committed than ever to continue to build a strong church on the foundation of scripture, the grace of Jesus, and the love of our people towards newcomers.

Perhaps it’s late and I’m just rambling.  Perhaps you’ve felt that way at times too.  Whatever it is, will you pray for me as we move forward with a bold plan of outreach for our community in 2007?  Thanks!

Why are so many blogging church planters writing about why so many church plants fail?  In the past few days, I’ve read at least four different blogs (no, I won’t mention them by name - that’s not fair) that give me the outline of why my chances of success as a church planter are about 33%.  Here are the two biggest reasons:

1) Perhaps the church planter isn’t actually called to be a church planter.

2) The church planter is called to the wrong area and thus, is out of touch with the culture.

Well, I have my ideas also but perhaps tackling these two reasons first will help organize my thoughts.

As to #1, I’m not sure anyone can really ascertain who’s been called and who’s just out to create a new job for themselves.  I’ve known many church planters who have taken years to build a solid work with faithful people and most church planters today would call that a failure because it took so long to build numbers.  Perhaps my friend “Bill” (we’ll just call him that) should have stayed in Tennessee and continued to pastor his little country church because he sure doesn’t relate to the urban dwellers of Denver, Colorado.  I mean, he’s been at his church plant (one that’s outside of my denomination) for a little more than three years and he’s only running about 55 people.  Surely this is a failure right?  Not so fast.  Bill’s building a work of strong, faithful people.  His little group is contributing nearly 60% of his salary now and are also tithing to denominational efforts within his church group. 

Another church planter I know had a power struggle with some folks who decided they had the money and wanted to run things.  After building the church to about 100 people, these few families ran off nearly 50% of the church.  What was left tried to survive but soon, 50 dwindled to 30 and then to 23 and the church closed.  I didn’t consider my friend a failure, just the victim of a bad power play.  The same families that forced the closure of his church now are trying to ruin another work but I don’t think they will succeed given the leadership and strength of numbers where they are at.

In any event, it’s hard to determine if the church planter was really called.  I have no doubt that more than one church plant was started by a person who couldn’t get a job pastoring anywhere and decided this must be what God had in mind….Whoops!

Moving on to #2, I have seen a few guys out of their element.  The hard part is when a person makes a decision to move out to the new city and their family follows but never really does move out (in heart!).  You can never get your footing that way and the ministry is doomed.  If the pastor has truly prayed about the area, shared his burden with his wife and children, and they have spent adequate amounts of time praying also, then I say go for it.  The first year you are in a new environment is a wash anyway as you get used to your new surroundings.  In my case, I was a 35 year old professional who left a secular career to plant a church with my wife and three children, ages 10, 7, and 2 at the time.  Was it difficult?  You bet.  I left a rural, small town setting and a church I truly enjoyed worshiping God in for a city 1000 miles away from anyone I knew and a burden to see new people come to faith in Christ and build a solid, bible preaching, bible teaching church that would serve as an alternative to much of the pablum I had seen in churches around me in the suburb I was moving to.  That’s not to say there weren’t solid churches in my area and that some of those were exciting new plants, but many plants with large numbers of people were playing Creed for the altar call and dismissing any naming of the blood bought sacrifice of Christ. (Again, not to criticize Creed, they were one of my favorite bands and still are in memory!  It just wasn’t appropriate for worship.)

I say if a man is committed, called, and broken for his new city, he’ll adapt what can be adapted without compromise.  Too many “experts” in the church planting movement called my friends’ lack of compromise on doctrinal issues “cultural irrelevance”; that is to say, they felt they were too “old school” for reaching the masses.  God forgive those who are so short sighted.

Now that I’ve discussed those, here’s my take on why some church planters fail:

#1 — The church planter is some young guy who feels he is of a “new” generation of preachers and that the old guy he’s working for, while solid, is a bit behind the times.  If only this young buck’s new ideas are tried, they will work.  The old guy just couldn’t adjust quick enough.  Of course, there are many faithful people in the church lacking a bit a maturity who feel the same way and they serve to boost the person’s ego.  The problem is, that person needs to season a bit more.  I’ve always called church planting an “extreme” sport for a reason.  It’s very easy to build a crowd of people quickly and plant a church that’s a mile wide and unfortunately, an inch deep.  A seasoned leader will see to it the growth comes with depth.  Paul said as much to Timothy when instructing him in appointing new leaders….

Don’t appoint people to church leadership positions too hastily. If a person is involved in some serious sins, you don’t want to become an unwitting accomplice. In any event, keep a close check on yourself.
(1 Timothy 5:22 MSG)

Many times, a church planter gets caught up in sins nobody knows about and it ruins his effectiveness.  Only he and God know about this.

#2 — The other reason church planters fail is because they do not spend time alone with God.  The great preaching expositor Dr. Stephen Olford once said the main directive he would give a preacher is to never, NEVER, NEVER, miss his quiet time with God.  Too many church planters I pray with never take the time to pray fervently and honestly for their work, for the souls that God will put in their path, for the finances needed to sustain the work, and for protection of the planter’s own life to be able to lead with character and integrity.  They are too caught up emailing the worship leader from their blackberry mobile device, talking to their AV techs on their blue tooth headset, and downloading the latest podcast from U2 to be able to get quiet somewhere and pray. 

Now I’m not saying all those things are wrong.  I keep an active “next actions” list on my gmail account which I check with my wi-fi equipped laptop, am a “Getting Things Done” or “GTD” junkie, and love writing things down on my Hipster PDA (Google it).  The thing is though, I refuse to let those things take away my valuable time.  There are times my wife just knows I’m not going to answer my phone.  If it’s an emergency, she has a way of getting to me but in most cases, my interruptions are things that can wait.  There’s nothing more freeing that taking off my tool belt with my MP3 player, cell phone, wireless device, and Hipster on it and just leaving the darn thing in the car while I walk through one of the many wonderful mountain trails I’m blessed with here in the Rockies.  Today, a light, powdery snowfall came down as I walked a steady incline (Thank you Bob Franquiz for your weight loss story!) and I enjoyed a quiet walk with my Lord.  We had a great time talking about yesterday’s wonderful service, my outrageous plans for 2007, and the coming Christmas holiday.  When all was said and done, I was able to take my chilled body a few miles up the road to a small private coffee shop and warm up with my bible and some strong Columbian blend!

What church planters truly need is that vital relationship with Christ, followed by years of seasoning before entering the mission field and I believe we’ll see more church plants flourish than ever before.

Christmas trees are going back up at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.  A backlash of criticism from across the country has caused airport officials to reverse a decision over the weekend to remove the trees due to threats of a lawsuit from a rabbi who wanted a menorah put up with the trees.  What’s interesting is all sides are in “damage control” mode this morning as the trees are being put back up.  For the airport, a new spokesperson was apparently appointed as Pat Davis announced they were going back up.  Davis was quick to mention that once the trees were down, the rabbi making the threats backed off and:

“Given that, the holiday trees will be replaced as quickly as possible,” he said.
Davis added that the rabbi “never asked us to remove the trees; it was the port’s decision based on what we knew at the time.”

Hmmm.  Interesting words.  Certainly the rabbi never did ask for the trees to be taken down but his threats did bring about the airport’s decision.  What the port (airport authority) knew at the time was that Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky had threatened to sue if he was not allowed to display an eight foot electric menorah alongside the trees.  Somebody with the airport decided to have the trees removed in the early morning hours on Saturday so as to keep down questions.  What happened though was a backlash of criticism including some from airline employees who brought their own trees to work as a response.  Talk radio also got in the discussion.  A local station near me devoted nearly an hour to the situation last night.

In my earlier article, I pointed to a comment made by the rabbi’s attorney, Harvey Grad, who said he hoped that people would look at his client and the Jewish community as the Grinch.  Well, I don’t believe the Jewish community should have even been mentioned but I guess he felt he needed to include others to protect his client.  Apparently, the attorney’s fears were realized as he was quoted today as saying:

The rabbi had received “all kinds of calls and emails,” many of them
“odious,” Grad said, adding he was “trying to figure out how this is
consistent with the spirit of Christmas.”

Well, I do agree it’s not in the spirit of Christmas but neither is hiring an attorney and threatening to sue over a pagan holiday symbol being displayed like a tree.  In the large scope of things, that’s what this was.  An argument to have a religious symbol of another holiday sitting next to one that has no religious significance.  As a Christian, I would love to see nativity scenes displayed but alas, they are not nearly as common as in years gone by.  That issue is another article for another time but as for this flap, there was simply no reason for any of this to transpire.  The rabbi’s lawsuit could not have held up in court given the symbolism tied to the tree.  As for “odious” behavior, Grad should have had enough common sense to tell the rabbi not to threaten a lawsuit and let the issue be.  All parties here are ignorant of what was apparent from the beginning and for that, all of them should be chided for playing political football with something as simple as a Christmas Tree.

I thank God common sense prevailed here despite the silliness of how it all came about.

Information for this article came from the story presented at CNN.com.

I’m conflicted about whether or not to write about this but I am appalled that the Seattle-Tacoma International airport made the decision to remove it’s Christmas Trees due to threats from a Jewish rabbi who threatened to sue them.  You can read the story through CNN’s website.  The gist of the story was the rabbi wanted to put up a menorah next to the tree and airport officials said no.

The quote that really got under my skin was this one:

“We decided to take the trees down because we didn’t want to be
exclusive,” said airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt. “We’re
trying to be thoughtful and respectful, and will review policies after
the first of the year.”

What?  Exclusive of what?  A tree?  For a community that considers itself cultured and educated, the folks at the airport certainly don’t know the history of the Christmas tree do they?  For the record, it has no direct connection to the Christian faith so therefore, a tree is not a religious symbol like a menorah.  A menorah is purely religious and is a symbol of Hannukah which begins Friday at sundown.  For a brief history of the Christmas tree, read this article from “Religious Tolerance”.

So why would the folks at the airport capitulate to this rabbi’s demands?  By succombing to the threats of others to incorporate many different cultures are we not ruining ours?  Is American culture not unique and to be celebrated?  Here’s another quote from the story:

“After consulting with lawyers, port staff believed that adding the
menorah would have required adding symbols for other religions and
cultures in the Northwest. The holidays are the busiest season at the
airport, Betancourt said, and staff didn’t have time to play cultural
anthropologists.”

So, is there a precedent for this?  I guess I’m just different in my thinking but if we take the multicultural imperative being forced on us by so many different people, are we not gradually reducing the very freedom we seek to protect by continually capitulating to others’ threats?  If the eventual outcome of our national “all inclusiveness” doctrine is to bring as many people groups together as is humanly possible, will the pool not be diluted as such that not one culture is even distinct?  I’m afraid we’re headed down a road that only leads to a nihilistic attitude nationally even though many cling to their Christian worldview.

At the crux of the silly debate is a symbol of the holiday that isn’t even Christian so why even have this dicussion?  I’m tolerant and wish no ill will to the rabbi or his people but I would have politely told him to pursue his legal options at his own expense and see where it led.  Now, travelers to the Northwest have nothing festive to greet them as they travel in and out of the airport.  The rabbi’s lawyer said it best:

“They’ve darkened the hall instead of turning the lights up,” said
Bogomilsky’s lawyer, Harvey Grad. “There is a concern here that the
Jewish community will be portrayed as the Grinch.“

That thought should have been considered before threats of a lawsuit were made.  Does it even seem right for a peaceful religion to make such threats?  I’m sure the rabbi and his attorney felt this was a slam dunk when they made the threat and were most certain that rather than ruin the entire holiday, they would allow the display.  Instead, now they have to face the criticism that they alone are largely responsible for this decision.  They along with an uneducated group of executives at the airport that didn’t have the common sense to research the history of the symbol and allow it to stand in a court of law.

Happy Holida…..er..Merry Christmas!

I’m taking a college class on the postmodern mindset at my local Christian University through the Christmas holiday.  One of the topics we discussed last night was the method of sharing the gospel with people we come into contact with, specifically postmodern thinkers.  I could write an entire series of articles on this topic but that’s not my purpose today.  One of the ideas I brought up was a thought first shared by church planter Steve Sjogren in the book “Irresistible Evangelism”.  It’s called “Golfing for Jesus” and it looks something like this:

The thought process here is fairly straightforward.  We start at the tee box where our friends are and of course, head to the hole where we want them to be.  Different styles and methods of evangelism are used depending on what point you’re at in the process.  I brought this up because one man questioned the legitimacy of the time honored “Romans Road” style of evangelism which some might say is more confrontational than relational.

I differed on this point since I still feel the method has merit just as much as I do servant evangelism. (For the uninitiated, servant evangelism is simply doing acts of kindness for free to show people God’s love.  Washing a car, raking leaves, handing out bottled water, and (in cold weather) hot coffee are all valid means of reaching out to someone with God’s love).  I don’t believe we need to get away from various ways of sharing the gospel.  The “golfing” model believes this to and allows you to learn these valuable tools and keep them in your “golf bag” for when they are needed.  You wouldn’t use a driver to putt with so why try it when someone’s life is at stake?  Different methods are outlined on the card as “active *******” with each one being something a little different.  These are outlined in the book, which you should get and read.

Has anyone else read this book and tried its methods?  Anyone willing to share?  This isn’t really a book review as such (although I’m filing it as such), but more of an “active sharing” time for all of us.  Let me know your thoughts.

A Seattle pastor who is being criticized for his comments regarding the Ted Haggard sex and drug allegations recently met with a group of these critics in an attempt to quiet some of the negative talk.  Mark Driscoll is the lead pastor of Mars Hill church and stirred up some controversy with his comments on the Haggard situation, specificially this statement:

“It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let
themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a
pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause
for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available
to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is
not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping
him either.”

I might add that was one small comment in the midst of a very large article admonishing the men to take precautions to avoid falling into sexual sin.  It was enough though, for a group of people who call themselves Christians to plan the very Christianlike activity (tongue firmly in cheek) of picketing the Mars Hill worship service tomorrow.  As a result of this threat, Driscoll agreed to meet with some of these folks and blogged about the meeting.  You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

I might add that the blogosphere was replete with any number of opinions regarding Driscoll’s writing and many took to criticizing his physical appearance and called him a hypocrite.  Such is the age of the internet and the availability of on-line publishing for anyone, including myself.  However, having come from the professional world of journalism, I still adhere to all those many lessons that were constantly reinforced by my peers over the years.  One of those is the difference between opinion based commentary, which constitutes the majority of bloggers, and fact based journalism which is not nearly as prevalent in the blogosphere.  Many things I write about here are opinion and nothing more.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Consequently, Driscoll’s article was simply that, an opinion.  If read in its entirety, the article is not offensive, but rather quite refreshing given the landscape in which many of us pastor today.  When I first read it and considered the admontions given to young pastors who might be tempted, I was thinking “Right on Mark, good advice!”  Instead, a group of people who considered the remarks insensitive and sexist began doing the very thing they accussed Driscoll of doing, assailing another’s character.  Instead of engaging the argument put forth in the article, they chose to attack the writer and began combing through his blog looking for every other comment they could take out of context and accuse the man of crimes he wasn’t guilty of.  It kind of sounds like the type of actions the religious leaders took when they wanted Jesus crucified.  They took pieces of Jesus’ comments and then made it look like he was saying things he never said.  The agenda was already set and the outcome was planned, they just needed to find a neat little package in which to channel their anger to make it look like they took the high road in this exchange.

So why the uproar?  If you use the “Google” search engine long enough, it will point you to some legitimate cases of sexist attitudes, even within the church.  Why not take those people to task?  Is it because of Driscoll’s profile within the church community?  Is it because he is a successful author with a growing church that has taken a stand on some issues that others may not agree with?  What happened to “freedom of speech”?  Also, if this man is guilty of the crimes that so many accuse him of, let the situation take it’s course and allow his flock to leave the church and go elsewhere.  If he’s truly the unbiblical sexist that they claim him to be, people in the church will figure it out and his ministry will end.  I may not always agree with everything the man has written.  To be honest, I’ve not read one of his books nor do I regularly stop by “The Resurgence” blog that he posts to.  No offense Mark if you choose to read this, but I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on the “man” so much as I do the church.  There’s a tendency in the blogosphere to build up a list of straw men who lead successfully in the world’s eyes just so the people blogging can knock them down.

Here’s what I do see.  I see a man who’s built a unique church and has been criticized for taking a biblical stance in some politically incorrect areas.  This situation and the one involving his church’s concert venue that was recently panned in the Seattle press are just two of the inflammatory stories I’ve read of late.

A better idea would be for us to focus on getting someone saved this weekend and to proclaim the cross without shame to those God puts in our path.  Save the critical vitriol for Satan and his minions.