Church is a Family Business
January 21, 2006
One of the buzzwords in church circles today is the “emergent” church. Blogger Bruce Kruse has been doing his best to explain what an emergent church is, but I am still not sure.
Kruse Kronicle: Church is a Family Business
This is the era of the mega-church. There are an endless number of growth gurus and “pastorpreneurs” who will teach church leaders the marketing and business skills they need to become the next Willow Creek, Saddleback, or Lakewood. The mega-church boom caught the eye of The Economist last month who published a fascinating article called Jesus, CEO. Many consider this Baby Boomer led phenomena to be the future of the church.
I read that article, but the “CEO” model has little appeal for me.
Then there is the other cutting edge church made up of young adults who are starting innovative small congregations, often referred to as Emerging Churches.
The version of the family that developed in the Twentieth Century has become a unit of consumption not production. Family has become the place we go to retreat from work and focus on each other. It is a place where we “fellowship” with each other apart from a chaotic world. This is not the family or household of which Paul wrote.
That is an interesting observation. In the western world at least, we tend to be “consumers” not “producers.” In our churches, we are more likely to consume entertainment than produce worship. We want to absorb good feelings when we should be pouring out praise to our Maker. It’s not all about me; it’s all about Jesus.
Many small dying mainline congregations I have worked with are deeply rooted in the family metaphor but it is the family model of the Twentieth Century, not Paul’s New Testament household. I was invited to speak to a declining church about growth awhile back. I begin my time by asking why they wanted to grow. After a long silence a man remarked “If we don’t grow our congregation will die.” I politely responded back, “Yes. You are probably right. But people die and congregations die. What difference would it make?” There was an uncomfortably long silence before a woman remarked “Well, we are such a friendly family and we want to share with others.” To which I responded, “But if you bring new people in aren’t they going to have their preferences and their problems to bring into the mix? Isn’t that just going to mess up your cozy family environment? Why would you want to mess that up?” There was very long a silence after that. This congregation like so many others had no vision of being anything other than a mutual support group and only wanted new people to keep there inward focused support group alive.
So if you ask me whether the church is to be a business or a family my answer would have to be, “Yes!”
Hmmm. Perhaps I am beginning to understand.
Dave, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
How Islam Spread: Veeery Slooowly
January 21, 2006
In the link below, Bryan Caplan reports on an introduction to Islam that takes issue with what we have been taught about the rise of Islam.
EconLog, How Islam Spread: Veeery Slooowly, Bryan Caplan: Library of Economics and Liberty
I am engrossed by Daniel Brown’s A New Introduction to Islam. It’s packed with juicy scholarship. A standard history will tell you that Islam swept the Middle East in the space of thirty years. What it won’t tell you is that for a long time this was only a military and political - not an ideological - victory:
It seems that for many years, Islam was less a religion than a political movement, which raises the question,
So what was the point of all these wars between Muslims and non-Muslims?
What did change was the ruling class. The new rulers spoke Arabic, represented a different ethnicity, and kept aloof from their conquered subjects… The new rulers continued to use Greek and Persian in adminstrative documents. They continued to mint Byzantine-style coins complete with the image of the emperor holding a cross, and Sasanian-style coins bearing Zoroastrian symbols and Sasanian dates…
I guess I need to read how author Daniel Brown explains the wars between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Dave, needing to know more about Islam.
A Pastor’s “Job Description”
January 20, 2006
A little wry humor here, perhaps? It’s not easy to be a servant of Jesus Christ while living in a fallen world. One doesn’t have to be a Pastor to also smile a little at this.
Kruse Kronicle: An Eschatological Pastor’s “Job Description”
WANTED: Person to fill position that involves important but undervalued work; exact job description unclear. Long hours; must work weekends and holidays. Low pay. Master’s degree required; doctorate preferred. Must be accomplished at multitasking, including running an organization without clear authority to do so. The successful candidate will be skilled as a public speaker, manager, politician and therapist, and will devote significant time each week to pastoral visits. The position reports to multiple bosses.
Dave, who has his own struggles with servanthood.
Keyboards Are Disgusting
January 19, 2006
They are? Just how do the Swedes use their keyboards?
Slashdot | Keyboards Are Disgusting
A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat.
Dave, breaking out his Moist Wipes, just in case.
Power suit
January 18, 2006
Washable computing is just what you and I have been yearning for, right? Here, without question, is a technology looking for an application in accordance with the unwritten law that no technology shall be left behind.
But then, I once poked fun at stereo sound and color TV and look what happened.
Here’s the story from The Economist.
Threads that think | Economist.com
As you walk out of the door, you will be not just fashionably attired, but digitally enhanced—a living, breathing node on the internet. This prospect will delight some people and horrify others. But it could actually happen, if the field known variously as smart fabrics, electronic textiles or “washable computing” can achieve the breakthrough its proponents believe is just around the corner.
You can put me in the horrified column. I’m afraid that no amount of digital enhancement would ever make me a fashionable person, let alone a smarter one. What are these smart fabrics, anyway?
Smart fabrics look and feel like ordinary textiles, but can do extraordinary things: generate heat, monitor vital signs, act as switches or sensors, and even change colour. With so much fabric woven into daily life, proponents of smart fabrics see them as a natural way to increase the pervasiveness of today’s gadgets and add snippets of intelligence to everyday items.
I suspect that last line was written with tongue in cheek. Increasing the pervasiveness of our gadgets doesn’t sound much like an unalloyed blessing to me.
Dave, curmudgeon.
Sin-eater
January 17, 2006
Patrick O’Brian, somewhere in one of his Aubrey-Maturin novels set in the early 19th century, wrote about a person who made a living as a sin-eater. As I remember the passage, the sin-eater got caught by a press gang and was brought on board ship as an involuntary crew member. He was a miserable soul and was wasting away, partly because he was being severely shunned by the forecastle jacks.
Wondering how much license the author had taken, I did some of what passes for research these days - I “googled” it. I found a long and detailed article on funeral customs, most of which tried to tell me a lot more than I wanted to know, but it did mention sin-eaters.
It seems that during the period between the death of a loved one and burial, people got pretty edgy. Not sure whether the person laid out would wake from the dead or not, they “waked” the departed and never left the body alone. Harking back to the biblical scape-goat, they called in the poor guy who was the village sin-eater. He earned a miserable fee and a scanty meal for taking on himself the sins of the dead. Then if the dead didn’t wake, the usual case I presume, he would be sinless and go straight to heaven.
Professor Evans of the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, actually saw a sin-eater about the year 1825, who was then living near Llanwenog, Cardiganshire. Abhorred by the superstitious villagers as a thing unclean, the sin-eater cut himself off from all social intercourse with his fellow creatures by reason of the life he had chosen; he lived as a rule in a remote place by himself, and those who chanced to meet him avoided him as they would a leper. This unfortunate was held to be the associate of evil spirits, and given to witchcraft, incantations and unholy practices; only when a death took place did they seek him out, and when his purpose was accomplished they burned the wooden bowl and platter from which he had eaten the food handed across, or placed on the corpse for his consumption.
I bet you didn’t know that!
Dave, who has made somewhat different provisions for taking away his sin.
Sour grapes
January 16, 2006
At the entrance to our little subdivision there is a brick sign identifying our short street as “Knollwood.” I like to get out with my digital camera, and the other day I recorded an image of the sign illuminated by the low winter sun creating an interesting pattern of light and shadow. I was pretty proud of it, so I emailed the image to the president of our condo owners’ association down the street.
I should have known better. He came right back with a couple of his shots that put mine to shame. Here they are.
The images are the work of one Bob Weirather.
Dave, looking forward to round two.
Galatians 6:1-5
January 15, 2006
6:1 Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too. 6:2 Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 6:4 Let each one examine his own work. Then he can take pride in himself and not compare himself with someone else. 6:5 For each one will carry his own load.
I suspect that most Christians understand the principle of helping one another stay on the straight and narrow path. Actually doing it is quite another matter, at least for this Christian. I’m never quite sure how I should “carry another’s burdens.” If I get too deeply into my brother’s personal problems, I am in danger of becoming, as Oswalt Chambers put it, an amateur providence. My idea of what is good for another might well differ from God’s will for him.
Then, there’s the matter of pride. C.S. Lewis regarded pride as the most serious sin because it involved comparison with another. But Paul here tells me that it is possible to have pride in myself without comparison with another.
After noodling this for a while, I conclude that taking pride in any work of mine is a matter between me and my Lord. I cannot involve anyone else. It’s my own load alone that I am to carry. -sdg-
Myrta
January 13, 2006
With a late Christmas card came this photo, taken last summer.
I lived in this house at 916 Leavenworth Street, Manhattan, Kansas, when I was only 5 years old. The lady standing in front is Myrta, who was a Kansas State College student in 1936. She lived with our family and helped out with the coralling of me and my two younger brothers, Don and Tom.
Myrta is in her nineties now and still getting around, as you can see. She visited us in Quincy a couple of years ago, and her memory is amazing, if at times a little embarrassing. She popped me right into memory mode, and I started remembered things that I had never remembered before. Some of those memories might actually have happened.
Dave, now popped back out.
Shumpgullion
January 12, 2006
The Muse is off in the corner , pouting, so let me share with you from the Forgotten English Calendar. Today’s word is shumpgullion, which is what they called a glutton in Lancashire.
You Are What You Eat
Under January 12, 1722/3, Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, enters in his diary what he had learned regarding a man . . . remarkable for a morbid appetite, leading him to devour large quantities of raw, half-putrid meat . . . .
One of the most remarkable gluttons of modern times was Nicholas Wood, of Harrison, in Kent, of whom Taylor the “Water Poet” wrote an amusing account:
“Two loynes of mutton and one loyne of beef were but as three sprats [small fish or morsale] to him. Once he shewed himself so violent of teeth and stomach that he ate as much as would have served thirty men, so that his belly was likely to turn bankrupt and break, but that the serving man turned him to the fire and annointed his paunch with grease to make it stretch and hold.”
- W.& R. Chambers’s Book of Days, 1864
If you have read this far, it proves that you, too, have a warped sense of humor.
Dave, not that hungry.
