It's Monday - All Day

I wanted to make the disclaimer right up front, since I'm here on my day off with a Rockbridge assignment due, a sinus infection picking up steam, having slept way too late and finding myself in a just plain cranky mood. I did think that our assignment was worth posting in hopes that it might spur discussion and someone out there to go deeper.

We were asked in the assignment to:

Write a critique of Part 1 in They Like Jesus But Not the Church matching your personal and church experience to what is presented by Dan Kimball in 2-3 paragraphs.

“They Like Jesus But Not the Church” Critique
Dan Kimball was perhaps the first to achieve broad distribution beyond the blogs and narrowly focused magazines of the idea that something was amiss with the way that emerging generations perceived the church as it exists today. The work of Tony Jones, Brian McClaren and others had been out before Kimball’s book, but their observations could be dismissed easier because of their fringe liberal status. Kimball writes in a way that helps people coming in from a traditional heritage or present position SEE.

Kimball’s book is like a mirror held up in front of the church today, and instead of the church making comments like “yeah, we are looking pretty good”, Kimball has people from the emerging generations come up and explain what we really look like. We’ve lost the path, and what’s worse, instead of going back and regaining our way, we’re pressing forward and yelling back at those who aren’t coming with us. A must read for anyone serious about reaching those outside.

Then there's Reggie McNeal's work.

Reggie McNeal wrote, “Church activity is a poor substitute for genuine spirituality.” (p. 7, The Present Future). Interact with McNeal’s assertion based on your personal and church experience in 2-3 paragraphs.

Reggie McNeal Interaction: Part One
When I first read the book, coming from a Southern redneck background though tempered with years of both formal education and personal growth, I wanted to run out and shout “heck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” The niggling little feelings about what we were doing at church I had possessed since before I was called as a pastor had, 7 years later into my first full-time ministry, begun shouting at me “IT”S NOT WORKING!!! THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT BEING TRANSFORMED!!”

We were doing everything we knew to do as church leadership, and kept adding things thinking that if we just provided one more inlet for people to learn, everything would change. I’ll confess that when 40 Days of Purpose came along, I really say that as a hopeful beginning to the sea change I desperately wanted to have occur. But it didn’t. We are doing too much at church. We are doing too much as staff for people. We are not expecting people to progress and start making disciples of their own. We need to teach people to live a cross-centered life and set them free to do it, not yoke them to another program. So yeah, Reggie spoke to me.

In “New Reality Number Two,” McNeal says the wrong question is “How do we get them to come to us?” and the right question is “How do we hit the streets with the gospel?” What question is your church trying to answer if measured by the programming promoted today? Explain in 2-3 paragraphs.

Reggie McNeal Interaction: Part Two
When McNeal asks questions, look out. You will not like the answer. Most of the time because the one you come up with is so completely wrong you feel foolish. When I read it, I bought copies for all the leadership. We have worked to find additional ways to bring the gospel to where people are, instead of always trying to attract them to where we are. (That was our only strategy at that point in time.)

So we have a sno-cone team that goes down to the local park and gives away sno-cones once a month. They also are in demand at other local events such as the Relay for Life that the American Cancer Society holds. We’re taking worship down to the park this summer with a bluegrass band and our praise band. We created off-site affinity groups (they were doing great, but they are proving very difficult to sustain). We have a group of people volunteering at the local elementary school, and that opened the door to our participating with them in the upcoming Relay For Life in Niceville. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.

I've had some people ask me why I'm still so hard after learning more - even after years in the ministry. It's because I still need to learn. We have to get better at living out our faith and sharing it with people who do not know Jesus. Sure, I'd love to write for a living, would love to teach other seminarians someday online. But I'll never stop wanting to be involved in the greatest work anyone can ever do.