Alot has happened since my last blog.  The biggest thing and the one thing that has been on my heart and mind 24/7 for the last 3 months is The Remedy.  About half a year ago we started asking this question - what would it look like if we combined our college and young adult ministries and went after a generation that the church is ignoring with no holds barred?  What would it look like if we did something that would not succeed without the God's movement?  Through much prayer, fasting, and research - we went out on a limb and The Remedy was born.  

The vision for The Remedy is to make a creative environment where unchurched people love to come and love God.  We hope that everyone at The Remedy will love God, love each other, and rock this world with the love of Christ.  Making a creative environment that would attract unchurched young adults is not a trade that is common in the church in America today.  We did not have a lot of precedence, so we went to those churches that are doing it best:  Granger Community Church, Newspring, Northpoint, etc.  We understand that our culture is driven by music and other forms of media, so we knew that to effectively communicate with our culture we have to connect on some level through music.  In foreign fields missionaries go to the culture and do two things before preaching the Gospel:  1) They learn the language, 2) They learn the culture.  Then they began to see how the Gospel can be best communicate.  Unfortunately instead of approaching our own culture as missionaries, the church dominated culture at one point in the history of America and planted its feet in the 1950's while the world around grew and changed and modernized.   Our situation now is one where many church people love our Christian sub-culture, rather than loving the God of all cultures - Jesus.  We have become inward foucsed and we don't mind if the rest of the world goes to hell as long as we have worship that is pleasing to us and preaching that helps us grow.    How far from the heart of the one who ate with sinners we have come!

So - The Remedy is an attempt to reconnect the gospel with culture by going to culture and leveraging it for the sake of the Kingdom.   

How will we know if The Remedy is a success?  i don't believe numbers will be the judge - because there is always the chance that we get alot of people - alot of church people.  Our success will be measured by how faithful we are to the vision God has given us - to connect the Gospel with a culture that is unchurched and dechurched.  If we have no fruit - then we are not connecting it, we are not bringing people who are far from God and making a space where they can meet God in their context.  And if that is the case then we will change the things that hold us back from bridging the gap.  

We have started with a vision, then some conversations, then the support of our church, then the support of our larger church network, then trust in God's dream, then preparation, then action.  Now we are meeting in the Capitol Theater on Sunday nights from 8-9 and rocking it out.  We are coming up on our third Sunday of The Remedy.  We have had a great start, I am continually amazed by how God is moving.  He is on the move!  Pray, then pray pray pray.  

Posted In: culture church

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I love the creativity of Erwin McManis and the folks at Mosaic. I also love the music from Glen Hansard. Thus the greatness of this video

Posted In: culture spirituality

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Well I have held off long enough.  I absolutely despise MySpace and the all the marketing that bombards you every time you go to login there.  However, I have come to realize that social networking sites are very useful for communicating with younger generations.  So... out of prudence I have surrendered to their popularity and vowed to embrace them as a means of communication. Then, against all my anti-MySpace feelings I fell in love with Facebook.  If social networking sites were grade levels then MySpace would be 6th grade through and through while Facebook would be a Graduate School.  So if you are Facebooker then I welcome you as a friend - if you aren't then join.  But here is your disclaimer: it is addictive.  

Posted In: culture

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I don't usually blog about specifically United Methodist things, so this is a first.  I recently read a fascinating and sobering book - UnChristian.  The foundation of the book was the extensive research conducted by David Kinnaman from the Barna Group about young adults perceptions of Christianity in our culture.  One of the most staggering statistics is that only 18% of people ages 16-35 who have had some contact with church or christians report having a good impression of the church.  18%.  And we are supposed to be known for our love!  

I don't want to make it sound like looks are everything, but when 82% of the people you are trying to reach think most people associated with your faith are hypocrites then you have a huge hurdle to jump in order to show them that faith in Christ looks alot different than what they have seen.   

So what does this mean for the United Methodist Church?  **Disclaimer:  In what follows I may sound like I know more about how the church works than I actually do**  In America the UMC has declined for the last half century.  Young adults are fleeing the pews (as they are in many mainline denominations) and we are grasping at straws (or contemporary services) to try to woo them back.  There are some United Methodist churches that are reaching this generation, but most are not.   Most churches that seem to be reaching this generation very well are outside of mainline denominations, or at least they appear to be -such as:  National Community Church, Elevate, Origins, Mosaic, etc.   In these churches we can see what they are doing right, but as a UM body we never want to look.  As we go to annual conference and convocation year after year the speaking and teaching seems to always stay within our circle of methodism.  News Flash: The United Methodist Church is declining - maybe we should get some help and inspiration from outside of our circle!     

Another factor and hopeful solution for our church lies in the fact that all the churches I mentioned above were relatively recent church plants.  This is an avenue that the UMC has not exhausted.  There are many opportunities in cities dense with young adults to plant churches that reach them where they are at.  Instead of spending years and years of time and resources trying to spiritually remodel an older church, why don't we focus our attention on the white fields of urban young adults.  My generation wants to belong before they believe.  And let's be honest - most churches aren't going to change their appearance and social systems in order to radically welcome a generation that is radically different.  

In They Like Jesus But Not the Church, Dan Kimball makes two very good points.  First, our current culture is not Christian and we must approach it as missionaries.  When international missionaries first interact with a new culture they do not come and try to enforce their culture onto it (or at least they don't anymore).  Rather, they learn the taboos, the ways to connect, the do's and the dont's.  We have tried to enforce a 1950's church onto a generation that views it as completely foreign and negative.  We must step back and study this culture and learn how to connect. The second point he makes is that pastors and lay people must actually get to know someone who is outside the church in this generation before we can ever truly fulfill our calling to this generation.  I love the last chapter in his book.  After he has described the crisis we are in you would expect him to give us the answer, but instead he essentially says, "No - I am not going to give you the answer because you need to go out and bulld relationships with people outside of the church,"  - wow, radical.   

I found it very fascinating that our conference spent so much money to send us to see a growing church in Brazil when we have many growing churches here in our own cultural context - though they are not Methodist.  I found it even more interesting that those churches that were experiencing drastic growth in Brazil were implementing things that have been seen to work here in America (only with churches outside of the UMC), namely, church planting, no guaranteed appointments, and modern leadership techniques.   So I believe there is hope for the UMC, but  I also believe that culture-change has to come from the top down.  Until Bishops and DS's are held accountable and in turn hold pastor's accountable we will never see change.  In the book Simple Church, Rainer and Geiger comment that until we have a way to measure the success of our process we will never take the call to make disciples seriously.  So until the higher ups of the church decide to withdraw guaranteed appointments and seek to measure our progress and not just our decline and seek to blaze new paths with church planting it is up to local churches to become radically welcoming and for the pastor's to be culture shapers.  However, in an itinerant system this is only a temporary fix.  

Posted In: church culture

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I now hate dot-matrix printers! I have been uploading photos and emailing people for about 2 hours now in the hotel lobby and the whole time there has been a dot matrix printer running.  I didn't think those things even worked anymore.  Not to mention that it is pushing 100 degrees in the lobby.  So I will make this one short.  Here is a video of me going to down an awesome waterfall we found at IMFORM in the mountains.  Also click here for more Brazil pictures.  Until next time, blessings!

Posted In: brazil culture

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Well it is ay 6 in Brazil and I think I can say I have met my daily dietary fiber goal for life. We have had black beans and rice with every meal besides breakfast.  But don´t get me wrong - the food is great. 

Today we met with Wilson Bonfim, the director of Evangamed, a medical mission in the slums of Rio.  He is also a key person in mobilizing the lay people in the churches in missions.  One of the keys to the success of the Rio conerence is their empowerment of the people to follow their calling.  God has called eveyone to something that will impact the world for His Kingdom, but so many times we relegate all the calling to clergy. 

We attended the Central Methodist church in Teresopolis (The City of Theresa) last night.  It was quite an experience.  Some of our group participated in the service.  Todd and I helped lead worship.  I was on congas and Todd played and sang.  Luckily we were rescued by their very talented praise band.  The Brazilian methodists know how to rock.  But just like American churches they too had trouble with their projector and powerpoint!  The spirit of the people here is amazing.  Their were literally about 600 people on a Thursday night (which is not their usual worship time) crammed into a gutted out industrial building - no air, no cushioned seats, but much energy. 

I am writing this from the office at IMFORM the Missions School we are staying at and the internet connection is very slow (I just found out that there whole network of 3-4 computer is run off of one cell phone!).  So I will hopefully have some video of a waterfall we went water sliding on uploaded once we get to the hotel in Rio, but for now here is one photo of us in Teresopolis. 

Posted In: culture brazil

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I had an unexpected field trip yesterday to one of the most interesting places in the greater Knoxville region.  Yes folks, Trentville, a little town formed out of the blood, sweat, and tears of the Trent family years ago.  The interesting thing about Trentville is that it straddles the line between ghettos of East Knoxville and the hollers of Strawberry Plains and you get an interesting mix of urban and redneck.  This happens to be the place of the formative years of Roger's ministry, which is why on Thursday afternoon we headed over to a little place called the Tacklebox, where you can get your bait and your burger at the same counter.  Now, I wasn't aware that Tennessee had passed a smoking ban about 7 months ago until we pulled in and Roger pointed out the "Smokers Welcome" sign in the window.  Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when we were greeted by a man coming out the door who, upon seeing the developing snow flurries, held his arms out and said, "What's this $#%!?"

When we walked in there was barely room to move around and white men in camo with mullets were sitting elbow to elbow with black men in work uniforms.  This was definitely a unique place in Eastern Tennessee with a culture all its own.  

However, the purpose of our coming to the Tacklebox wasn't merely to have a Tackleburger, but to meet Roger's former pastor, Steve Evans.  Steve is one of those guys that walks into a room full of strangers and walks out with a room full of friends, all of which are about to pass out from laughter.  And laughter was just what the struggling town of Trentville needed 10 years ago when he was appointed to Trentville United Methodist Church.  

When he first arrived Trentville UMC was struggling for breath with 15 members.  Now it is a thriving cornerstone in the community with upwards of 150 in attendance.  In a town that was riddled with meth labs and hopelessness Steve was a breath of fresh air who offered real people the real hope of a real God in a real way.  As we finished our Tackleburgers Steve and Roger remenisced over a huge outreach event where the church staff dressed up as WWF characters and had a Church Yard Brawl.  In a culture that loves Stone Cold Steve Austin, this event drew about 300 community members into the light heartedness of the love of Christ.  

My time with Steve and Roger left me with something to contemplate.  As our church leadership gets caught up in a hip culture, myself included, who are the leaders who will go to those in the foothills of Appalachia where Starbucks isn't cool and cell phone service isn't guaranteed?  Do we wait for this culture to catch up to our catchy ideas or do we go backup, lose ourselves, and live and breath with people and share the gospel in a real way? 

Posted In: culture funny-haha

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I crossed the line today.  The line between Maryville and Alcoa that is.  Some people try to ignore this line and pretend it doesn't exist.  Some just don't care.  But there is a line.  It is a line that separates communities.  Segregates communities we could say.  On one side you find mostly affluent white folks, on the other - lower income families, white and black.  I am not sure why this line exists or how it got there, but I can't deny that it divides.  I crossed the line today and walked with those in Blount Co. that don't want the line there.  As we walked we talked about the line and how we can erase it.  We had to admit, to our shame, that the line is even in our churches.  And the line begins to end first in the body of Christ.  

We must keep on crossing the line until it is covered in the dust of the shoes of the faithful.  And we must find the brush and paint that drew the line and use it to paint the brokenness of neighborhoods that was bred in the shadow of the line.   

Churches must begin to work together to put brushes and paint into the hands of the young and teach them they don't have to keep on painting lines.  Lines that divide, and lines that box them in and imprison them.  They can paint the future of their own lives and of their communities.  Churches must work together to give the parents a bucket of water and a brillo pad and teach them to erase the lines that they painted in and around their families.  

And lest we seek to change the world without changing ourselves we must wake up and see the lines in our own lives and cross them.

Posted In: social-issues culture

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While we were at Catalyst I had to step back and ponder what all goes into using material gain to fuel ministry connections.  About six different 'vendor' booths at the conference were giving away Apple products with the hopes of getting all your information to later fill you mail box and inbox with their materials.  I am all for the church giving gifts to display a welcoming spirit, but I have to wonder about all the implications of using material gain to fuel interest in your ministry.  Are we validating our culture's incessant pursuit of elite gadgetry as a means to happiness?  Below are several snapshots of lottery-type contest kiosks.  The really excited looking guy is Binji.  He was working the Dave Ramsey booth.  The card he is holding shows a number of Apple products that can be won by filling it out.  

Posted In: culture catalyst

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You know how there are those things that always seem a little funny to you and then someone explains it or you see the reasons why you felt that way?  Kinda like when you see a pastor driving a really expensive car, or a Puerto Rican claiming to be Jesus.  I have always wandered why a non-believer would give a rip about how we worship God.  Sally Morgenthaler, former worship-as-evangelism promoter, wrote an incredible article on the current state of the 'contemporary-service-for-unchurched-folk'.  Very enlightening. It is definitely worth a read.

Posted In: church culture

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