As many of you know, for the last two years New Denver Church has been developing a partnership with a church in the small Guatemalan village of San Pablo la Laguna (to read more about our decision to work in Guatemala check out the New Denver website). Our strategy is to establish a relationship with this church and their pastor, Antonio Moxnay, in order to contribute to lasting change over a long period of time. We are focusing all our efforts on this one village.

Last year I had the opportunity to take my first trip to San Pablo and was moved both by the heart of pastor Antonio for the people in this village and by the physical and spiritual needs he is trying to address. This June I will be heading back to Guatemala with a few other people from New Denver, including my seven-year-old son Ethan.

Ethan has asked us about going to Guatemala several times, and we always told him he had to wait until he was older. When it became clear that this was going to be a smaller trip, I began to feel like maybe this was the right time to take him. As Kate and I talked about it and prayed about it, we felt like this might be a great opportunity. Our hope is that the experience of experiencing another culture and being exposed to people who have far less materially than we do will leave a lasting impression on Ethan. Click here to read the note Ethan wrote to share about our trip.

There are two projects we want to accomplish on this trip. First, we want to spend time meeting with families in San Pablo and getting to know them and their specific needs. Our hope is that by collecting this data we can begin to get an idea of some of the macro needs of the community and how we can best serve them on future trips. Our plan is also to photograph each family for this database and to have pictures framed as gifts for the family. This may sound silly, but in a poor village most people have few if any family pictures. We think this will be a much-appreciated gift. Our second project is to spend 2-3 afternoons a week with the kids of San Pablo running a soccer camp. This project was what first got me thinking about bringing Ethan. He is excited to help me coach the camp and to get to play soccer with some of the kids from San Pablo. We are extremely grateful to the Colorado Fusion Soccer Club, the club for which Ethan plays and I am a coach, for donating equipment for the camp which we will leave behind as a gift for the children of San Pablo.

We are very excited about this trip and the opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in Guatemala, and we’d like to give you an opportunity to be involved as well. There are two ways you can support what we’re doing:

1. Pray – Though I have traveled extensively, I have to admit some nervousness about taking Ethan to another country. Please pray for my peace of mind and for our protection on the trip. Please also pray for our time in San Pablo and that we would be able to make the most of our time.
2. Give financially – The trip will cost around $1100 each for Ethan and I. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution to our trip expenses, you can do that a few different ways:
1. Just send a check to us made out to New Denver Church (email me for our address).
2. Pay online via eGive, our preferred online solution. Just click here to give to New Denver Church and select the “Global Mission/Guatemala” fund.
3. Lastly, we are set up to use PayPal (though it’s not our preferred option as they take a 2% processing fee). Click here to donate to the Guatemala fund via PayPal.

Thanks for taking the time to read about our trip. We look forward to sharing more as we go and when we return!

Stephen and Ethan

Ethan has enjoyed a great year of first grade at our neighborhood school, Steele Elementary. It has been amazing to see how much he has learned and grown during this year. His reading, writing, and math skills have continued to get better each week, and he’s shown a lot of enthusiasm for special projects like learning about Australia. In addition to school, Ethan played another season with the Colorado Fusion soccer club. This is his fourth season with this team, and it is fun to see these kids grow together. As they get older we can see their skills and competitive natures growing. Fortunately we have another year in the “developmental” league before we have to step up to the more serious competitive league! Ethan is also playing baseball and really loving it. We think his favorite sport is whichever one he is playing at the moment. Ethan is looking forward to a summer full of camps around Denver and some fun travel to visit family. We also made the decision for Stephen to take Ethan with him on his June trip with New Denver Church to Guatemala. You can read more about that trip in a separate post, but Ethan is so excited to experience travel to another country and experience a whole new culture.

Andrew turned 5 in April and celebrated with a party with friends from school at Chuck-E-Cheese (we hope this is a our last Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party). Andrew was thrilled to have Stephen’s parents here (aka “MaLa and Pop”) for his special day. What’s not to love about a few days of spoiling from your grandparents?! Andrew still doesn’t like school and is glad to remind us of that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when he goes to pre-kindergarten! Kate took him to a kindergarten open house at the school he’ll be attending this fall and was encouraged that he seemed to enjoy himself. We’re beginning to see he may just be more of a homebody! He is still playing soccer with the Colorado Fusion club, and Stephen is coaching his team again. He has improved this year but still loves snack time after the game way more than the game itself!

Kate continues to be the one to keep our household running and organized. On top of her work with Ronald Blue & Co., she still finds time to make lunches, chaperone field trips, be team mom for Ethan’s soccer team, coordinate our family schedules, and invest in women from our church through a bi-weekly discipleship group. In March she also made time to take the boys to visit her grandmother in Virginia. She’s also been hard at work planning an anniversary trip this fall. On August 24th, Stephen and Kate will celebrate ten years of marriage and are planning a trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley in September. Between now and then Kate will be navigating our family through a summer filled with a complicated maze of summer camps and cross-country trips to visit family too complicated to begin to describe!

Stephen continues to stay busy with a variety of things as well. New Denver Church continues to be the primary passion of his heart, but since he and the other three pastors committed to being bi-vocational since New Denver started, he also has several other things on his plate as well. He let some of his technology consulting contracts expire last fall to commit to being home with Andrew one day a week to give Kate more margin to do her job. But in anticipation of getting that time back this fall, Stephen started doing some small groups coaching for other churches through the Miles Advisory Group. It has been a great experience and seems to be a flexible way to provide more income while serving the wider church. Stephen has also been working with an old friend, Gabe Lyons, and some friends here in Denver to host a local version of the Q Conference that Gabe’s organization puts on every year. This effort is fueled by Stephen’s desire to be part of igniting a movement of churches and Christians around the Denver area to work for the common good of the city. It hasn’t been all work for Stephen as he took some time in March to go with some guys from New Denver down to Arizona to watch some Rockies and Dodgers spring training baseball! Stephen is also looking forward to a busy summer full of exciting projects, including his trip to Guatemala in June (again, for more on that click here) as well as some fun trips to visit friends and family.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. We’re grateful for friends and family who care about us and keep up with what’s happening in our lives. We pray that this update finds you all well. Please reach out and say “hi” or even better – come see us! Denver’s a great place to come visit… ;-)

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or perhaps gave up all media for Lent (if you did, stop reading this), then you know the sports news cycle has focused an inordinate amount of attention over the last two weeks to where Peyton would go next. All those questions were put to rest this week when it was announced that Peyton and I will soon be neighbors. Well, we’ll at least be living in the same metropolitan area – Denver, Colorado – as Peyton signed a 5-year contract that could be worth up to $96 million dollars. So everyone in Denver is thrilled, right? Well, not exactly.

You see, Denver already has a quarterback. And unless you spent the last six months under the aforementioned rock then you definitely know who he is. Tim Tebow set the sports world on fire last season with his last-minute comebacks and his unabashed commitment to a very public expression of his faith. He took a hapless and hopeless 1-4 Broncos team and by force of will, turned them into a playoff team. It wasn’t pretty, but he won. Moreover he won over the people of Denver, including me. Despite my admiration of his strong faith and character, I was a skeptic of Tebow early on. As one writer put it, “He throws like he’s chucking a ham and runs like he just stole a toaster!” It wasn’t always pretty, but as the season progressed you just couldn’t take your eyes off him. He won me over. He won this city over.

So when the news came that the Broncos were signing Peyton, I wasn’t shocked, but I was a little disappointed. For Tim, sure, but also for myself and other loyal Tebow fans here in Denver. He worked hard. He earned the love of (most of) the fans. He earned the right to lead this team. But when you have the chance to get a hall-of-fame quarterback, you jump on it. I get that. It’s just business, it’s not personal. So why do I feel disappointed? Why are people calling into the Broncos radio show blasting John Elway and the Broncos’ management? If it’s just business, why is everyone so upset? Why are so many people taking it so personally?

The fact is, it is personal. Life is personal. When we say things like “It’s just business” we’re often just trying to make ourselves feel better by justifying a decision that hurts others. Every day people have to make difficult decisions that impact the lives of others, often in very negative ways. These decisions are part of life, and yes they are part of business (and ministry). They cannot be avoided. But let’s not kid ourselves by saying that they’re not personal.

In a conversation with his disciples about the cost of following him, Jesus once asked rhetorically:

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Matthew 16:26)

It’s probably a good question to ask in situations where we feel tempted to tell ourselves “it’s not personal, it’s just business.” Because from the lens of eternity, it seems more likely that we’ll all look back and say “It’s not business, it’s just personal.”

New Denver Church is part of the Ecclesia network of churches, and this week I’m here in Washington DC for our annual national gathering. Here’s the focus of this year’s gathering from the website:

Our focus this year is on how our churches can function as centers of reconciliation, where we learn through the power of the Spirit to live as one reconciled family of God across racial, economic, and generational lines.

I’ll share my notes from the conference, but my standard disclaimer applies – these were the thoughts that captured my attention but may or may not make sense taken out of context. If you have questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

Don Coleman

• “We are masters of getting people in chairs to listen to someone talk. If that changed the world then we’d have done it by now!”
• “God wants to use you…like toilet paper – to clean up dirty people.”

K‌eas Keasler

Rhythm Church, Miami, FL

• “I want to be part of an insurrection. We talk about revolution, but that doesn’t seem to be God’s plan. A revolution is when a large group rises up and takes control. An insurrection is when a small pocket of people choose to live in defiance of the powers that be.”
• Too often in evangelical world we compare ourselves to others and value “success” over faithfulness.

Community Transformation Q&A

• “Tension is good as long as there is resolution and reconciliation.”

AJ Swoboda

God’s Spirit and the Ecology of Life

• American Christians have wed the idea of subduing the earth and capitalism/consumerism.
• Epiphany – literally “A voice from above.”
• At the end of the day, every decision we make has impact on our world. Literally our theology shapes the land.
• What if we observed our church as an ecosystem?
• Where do we get our theology of creation care? Many start w/Gen 1-3, which is good. In Isaiah (3, 11, 42, 48), he talks about an ox and a lion lying together and a child picking up a snake when the Messiah comes. This is a complete sense of reconciliation between enmities. This is the NT perception about the presence of the Holy Spirit – people who were enemies are reconciled.
• Ernst Heckel developed the idea of ecology. His notion of ecology (from the Greek “oikos”) came from the NT’s picture of the house of God. He saw the earth as one big household.
• Gaia Theory – Argues that the way humans have thought about the earth for thousands of years is wrong. The longstanding belief that individual parts are disconnected, and you can impact one without impacting the other. The Gaia Theory argues the opposite – that the earth is connected and affected by everything else. If you destroy one area, it affects a completely different area.
• “All of us have science that we love, and we have science that we hate.” The evidence of what we see happening to our earth should trouble us as a Christian. A species goes extinct every hour.
• Our churches function this way. Someone in our church cannot be addicted to pornography and not affect others.
• What are the little things in our church that change everything? (e.g. Sabbath)
• “Any theology that does not serve the church is the highest form of idolatry.” -Barth
• Three important ideas about ecology and the church:

• In the church, everything is interconnected.
• Refuse to have a “justice list.” Instead as a church seek to find God’s justice in everything. Every church can’t do everything, but you can live in relationship with God and address any forms of injustice you encounter. Justice will change your bank account, show up in your living room, etc.
• We always choose to be a church of reconciliation. The Holy Spirit is the “Go between God.”

How do we live with the tension that we can’t do everything? Paul’s understanding of the body of Christ is that we live our gifting and leave room for others to do the same. Understand the justice issues you are called to address and leave room for others to do the same.

;

Ben Sternke

Evangelism for the Rest of Us

• Continuum of Service vs Evangelizing
• Breakthrough, Believing, nothing, Blessing
• Evangelism has become discerning what God is doing in people’s lives and joining him in that.
• Our communities exist to draw people toward Christ.
• Luke 10 – “People of peace” passage
• The power of God is open to me. Am I open to that power?

Ivy Beckwith

The Millenials and Generation Z

• Millenial Generation, George Barna’s estimation:
• Serious
• Stressed – Most protected (helmets, car seats, etc0, most “wanted” (in an age of pervasive birth control)
• Skeptical
• Spiritual Sense
• Survivors
• The first truly “plugged in” generation (digital natives vs. digital immigrants)
• Digital immigrants have to learn technology and are never quite fluent.
• Digital natives understand technology innately.
• Technology is a great divide of generations. It may be the biggest divide between the Baby Boomers/Busters and Millenials/Gen Z.
• Millenials/Gen Z have spent their entire lives surrounded by technology. These kids think and process information fundamentally differenly than their predecessors.
• Other Characteristics
• Consumerism – They like to buy, but they are particular about branding. See the rise of Apple. They like experience. Going to the Apple Store is an experience; Best Buy is not.
• Passionately Tolerant – (Possible counter-trend: bullying)
• Experience oriented – In learning they don’t just want to be told; they want to experience it. They will consume experiences more than things.
• Family oriented – They really like their parents. In some ways maybe even in unhealthy ways.
• Mobile – If a job doesn’t provide the experience they want they will quit to find a better experience.
• Not quick to trust – The people they trust the most are their grandparents. They will give you a chance to have their trust, but if you blow it, then it will be difficult to regain trust. They value truth and integrity.
• Potentially civic-minded – This has not yet played itself out, as they are at most in their mid-20s. A possibly mitigating factor is the problem of student-loan debt.
• Humor is extremely important to them. They are incredible consumers of humor, but they also gravitate toward people who are humorous. If someone is funny that makes them someone they want to be with. The problem is that not everyone is funny.
• They understand that spirituality is a part of life and are interested in experiencing that. So they are open to spirituality but also fickle. They are syncretistic. They may be Christian, but they may incorporate other practices from other religions into their faith. “Soul Searching” – study done of 5000 Christian kids. When researchers dug deeper what they found was “morally therapeutic deism.” So, yes they may be “spiritual” but they probably don’t have a clue what it means to really be a Christian.
• The characteristics of Generation Z (The Adaptives, Generation “Fat”)
• Might be the most physically inactive generation ever
• Technology, redux. Technnology will be about collaboration and productivity.
• Unlike millenials, they may be more self-directed. Less dependency on their parents. Although, there is an interesting counter-trend. Parents seem obsessed with “how do I keep my kids entertained.”
• They may have a different view of privacy than previous generations. They may not even care about privacy in the same way.
• Value of extreme racial diversity and value pluralism.
• New views of education. Questions arising around new approaches to higher education that will affect this generation.
• What Gen Z likes (or will like)
• Internet, social media.
• Sharing on social networks. Croudsourcing, solving problems together.
• Online shopping.
• Mobile video.
• Texting.
• What they will never experience:
• Being lost without a map.
• Resolving a dispute without Google.
• Searching for change to make a phone call.
• Deciding which travel guide to leave home.
• Having nothing good to watch on TV.
• Checking prices with a travel agent.
• Waiting for the bank statement to arrive in the mail.
• Never have to balance a checkbook.
• They will never miss a date or meeting, because they can instantly get in touch with the other person.
• They will never have to worry about forgetting a coupon at home.
• They will probably never go on a truly blind date.
• What are the threats/opportunities?
• How can virtual relationships measure up to face-to-face relationships? These tools enhance relationships instead of replacing. Ultimately the technology is good. It’s different, but it’s okay. Just because generations have differences in how they relate doesn’t make one wrong. Technology is an opportunity.
• It changes things. For example, youth retreats – not banning technology but limiting its use.
• Kids bring their desire for experience into the church. They want to experience God, not just hear about him.

Brian Hopper

Advanced Coaching

• In a world where everyone is talking, the art of listening is in decline. Yet those who listen are more valuable than ever.
• Tillich says that the first act of love is to listen.
• How can we tell when people are listening?
• Posture – leaning in, eye contact, nodding,
• Asking probing questions.
• Restating what someone says.
• How do you feel when someone listens to you? Valued, loved. Conversely, when someone doesn’t listen you feel like the person doesn’t value or love you.
• What are some ways you can demonstrate you’re listening?
• Body: body language (posture, head leaning in), nodding, facial expressions, eye contact, mirroring (replicating, intentionally or not, what the other person is doing), wandering eyes (if your eyes wander, come back to the eye contact)
• Words: Verbal markers (uh-huh), clarifying questions, affirming comments, restating information
• Mind: Absorption, self coaching (“don’t think about your response”, think “don’t say anything”), Note taking
• Intuition: Observation of their body language, what are they not talking about
• Remember the 80/20 rule. Try to focus on listening 80% and talking 20%.
• Questions:
• Closed: Yes or No – Do you agree? Is it okay to move on?
• Open: What is happening at your work now? What is the Lord saying to you about your decision?
• Directive: What is your plan to raise money? Which team member is causing problems?
• Emotions: What feelings do you have about your decision? What emotions do you have when twhen you think about marriage?
• Who, What, When, Where
• Why: Ask non directive questions to avoid questioning motives.
• Statements that provoce reflection: Tell me more about…What else is going on…Say more aobut that…
• Change actually begins by asking questions. Questions provoke dialogue, and dialogue leads to change.

AJ Swoboda

A Community Reconciled Through the Spirit

• Isaiah 11 – A picture of enemies reconciled to one another.
• Mark 16 – Weird verse about handling snakes. This is a picture of the power of enmity disarmed in Christ.
• Story about 2 atheists visiting his church, “Two Atheists Go to Church” blog,children served communion.
• “The Lord’s table is so beautiful. Who am I to check the guest list” -L’Engle
• The Spirit (ruach) hovering over chaos in Genesis, on leaders in Judges, over Mary with Jesus. This same Spirit falls at Pentecost and the church is born. As the Spirit was on Jesus, it is now on the church.
• The Holy Spirit isn’t the third wheel of the Trinity. We need the Spirit because we are really bad pastors. Only the Spirit can change.
• Concept of the “demonstration plot” from Wendell Berry – the place where farmers tried out new equipment and farming techniques. This is the church – a place to try and experiment and discover how the Spirit will work.
• “Jesus returned with his scars. Even Jesus ministered out of his pain.”
• We seek revenge with a gun…or a blog. Jesus uses resurrection.
• “We are not called to be born against. The kingdom is bigger than us. The Spirit is big enough to work through the pastors you can’t stand.”

Our focus this year is on how our churches can function as centers of reconciliation, where we learn through the power of the Spirit to live as one reconciled family of God across racial, economic, and generational lines.

I’ll share my notes from the conference, but my standard disclaimer applies – these were the thoughts that captured my attention but may or may not make sense taken out of context. If you have questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

John Perkins

Church planter in Jackson, MS.

• “Our visionis too small.”
• 1. Jerusalem – Your home, family, and church.
• 2. Judea – Be a witness in the area surrounding your home. Impact your city.
• 3. Samaria – Jews didn’t associate w/Samaritans. Samaria is the place you don’t want to go. It is the tough places where we stand on the front lines and make a difference.

Dave Fitch

• Isa 58:3-7
• Our relationship w/God is vertical, our relationship w/others is horizontal. Vertical is indistinguishable from horizontal. God initiates, we respond, it flows.
• Dunn – Justice of God.
• Four bad things that happen
• We distance ourself from the poor. We send $2M down the road to people we don’t know. It is easier to deal with the poor at a distance.
• We reinforce injustice. When the numbers get large and we send money to people we don’t know, we reinforce the problems.
• We end up doing justice for wrong (perverse) reasons. We give to feel better than ourself.
• We lose the ability to discern justice, complete it in Christ.
• Practicing justice as a revolutionary subversive body: try this?
• Eucharist
• Fight the split. Resist separating personal salvation from social salvation.
• Go local first.
• Always move toward relationship.
• Town meetings. Gather for conversation.
• Proclaim gospel more widely. The gospel reigns over the systems of injustice.

Dr. Ivy Beckwith

The Faith Community & The Spiritual Formation of Children

• John Westerhoff says “If we want our children to have faith, they have to be part of communities that are conducive to their spiritual formation.” What does a faith community look like that’s conducive to the formation of children?

• “…a true community consists of an inclusive group of people who are a) socially interdependent, b) share meanings, history and practices and c) have personal relationships of depth.”

• “Emotional health and spiritual health go hand in hand.” -Beckwith

• Westerhoff on what a community conducive to formation should be:

• A group of people who share a common memory or tradition. (A generation of “history” – where did we come from, a generation of “now”, and a generation of the “future”)

• A group of people who share common goals and purposes.

• A group of people with a clear identity.

• Characteristics of faith community conducive to formation:

• Belonging - how well do you do helping adults and children feel like they belong. “A place to belong, a place to become.” How are children greeted? Do greeters greet adults and children? Where are they allowed and where aren’t they?

• Moral Trust - How is power used? What is the perception of leaders of the church? What does that have to do with kids? Kids can feel and discern if people don’t trust leadership. Kids’ ideas about leadership in church is formed by what they hear parents talking about. How trustworthy is your community for the children who are part of it? How are you doing making your community a safe place for kids (e.g. background checks, ensuring quality of volunteers, physical safety of the rooms, etc)?

• Mutual Gifting - Does your community allow children to serve adults or is it all about serving the kids? “We are really good at doing things for children, but how are we at doing things with children or letting children do things for us?” Think of ways that children can minister alongside you or things where children can be included as equal participants. We all have a long way to go in creating “pan-generational” worship services. The sermon is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to including kids in the worship service. You don’t have to have a sermon every week. “We would never exclude the mentally handicapped because they disturb our services, yet we do that with our children.”

• Citizenship - “Being missional.” Communities who help their children reach out beyond the walls of their church. Give children a chance to participate, and then give them the opportunity to reflect (e.g. making sandwiches for homeless people, then asking “why did we do that?”, answer: because that’s what people who love God do, they care for other people). This is about teaching kids about the larger world and how the faith community fits in this larger world.

• Story - First, we tell the Biblical story. How are kids hearing and understanding the Biblical story? Second, your community has a history. Why did your community start? What is your purpose? They also need to know the stories of people in your faith community. Seeing how others live out their faith is so necessary for kids, particularly as they reach middle-school age. We often don’t give kids language to understand their own faith experience or how their lives intersect with the Biblical story, or with the kingdom of God story, or their community at large. Once you can talk about it, you canbegin to internalize it.

• Processes of Spiritual Formation

• Processes that communicate belonging.

• Processes that involve participation.

• Processes that facilitate modeling.

• Processes that provide instruction as interpretation of life.

• Processes that encourage the exercise of choice making.

Now I have to admit, I hate the NBA. Ever since the league went from being a team game that highlighted great rivalries between cities to promoting individual players and often glorifying thugs who happened to be good at basketball, I lost interest (somewhere back in the ’90s). But Jeremy Lin quickly caught my interest, not only because he is an incredible Cinderella story, but also because of his outspoken Christian faith. The inevitable comparisons were made to Tim Tebow, but it quickly became apparent that Jeremy Lin is his own person and represents a different perspective on Christianity.

This became apparent to me after reading Michael Luo’s great piece in the NY Times, ‘Lin’s Appeal: Faith, Pride and Points.’ The article is Luo’s intensely personal reflection on how Lin’s success is about so much more than basketball. Luo was the first to open my eyes to how Lin is beautifully representing his faith in a way that is true to his culture and heritage. His success has made Lin the very public face for a vibrant but often overlooked segment of American Christianity, and Keith Bradsher’s piece in the NY Times pointed out, he’s also making waves in China where Christians are still persecuted for their faith.

Then this week I read a great post by Carl Park over on the Gospel Coalition’s blog where he builds on Luo’s reflections on why Asian American Christians are connecting to Lin differently than they have to Tebow. Park does a great job of pointing out that the experience of being an Asian-American Christian is quite different from that of Anglo-American Christians, though that experience is not as widely known. The controversies of the Anglo-American church have not been their controversies. They aren’t experiencing the decline of the broader American church but are actually experiencing vibrant growth. The Asian-American church has an important voice in the conversation about Christianity in America that has been largely unheard. Park’s hope is that Lin-sanity is changing that:

Linsanity, for Asian Americans, is only partly about basketball. More significantly, it’s about that outside experience being recognized by others and, even further, evolving into inclusion. Can what happened to Lin in the NBA happen to him and other Asian American Christians in the broader American church? Can it encourage Asian American Christians to give more of their gifts and leadership to the community—and Community—at large? It sounds grandiose, insane. But, as we’ve seen the last two weeks, insanity happens.

After living in central Asia and eastern Europe for an extended period of time and traveling regularly throughout my life to serve churches around the world, you’d think I would be more consciously aware of the importance of learning about faith from other cultures. But it’s so easy to become ethno-centric – to spend time primarily with people who look and think similarly to you. It’s easy to only hear the loudest voices and assume they represent the whole picture of what God is doing in the American church. But Jeremy Lin has reminded me that even though we share the same citizenship – both on earth and in heaven – we have very different experiences of life and faith. There is much to learn from those who are different from me, but it is easy to forget that. Thanks for the reminder Jeremy Lin.

**Image from Flickr user nikk_la, used under Creative Commons license .

celebrity |səˈlebrətē|
noun ( pl. celebrities )
a famous person. the state of being well known.

Sure, pastors it seems definitely can become well-known. Jethani points out in his article, “Before Osteen, Warren, and Driscoll, there were Moody, Spurgeon, and Whitefield. Celebrity pastors are not new.” But in the technology-driven age we live in, there are more pastors who have celebrity status than ever before. So is there a problem with pastors being celebrities? Maybe.

Breen is quick to point out in his post “Obituary for the American Church” (an exploration of what he believes are the three primary sins of the American church today – celebrity, consumerism, and competition…I’m sure it’s coincidence that they are all “C” words) that Jesus himself would fit the definition of celebrity. He was a well-known figure, even in his own time. But throughout the gospels we see Jesus playing this strange dance with his followers and with his growing celebrity. When the crowds got too large he simply slipped away to be alone. Or just when it seemed his movement was reaching a tipping point and the masses were flocking to him, he would share something incredibly difficult and people would leave. Nowhere is this more evident than in John 6. The chapter begins with Jesus feeding 5000 miraculously and then following it up by walking on water. He had some serious momentum going. So what does he do with it? Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life, and the only way to have the life he offers is to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:53-58). The crowd’s response, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”…”From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (John 6:60,66).

Breen makes the point in his article that Jesus was famous, because he was doing significant things. There is an enormous difference between being famous and being significant. Jesus’ goal was to be faithful to the work the Father had given him, even if that compromised his celebrity. He said the hard things that needed to be said, regardless of the consequences. Faithfulness was his measure of success. My question is – do pastors who achieve celebrity in large churches and leadership conferences today have that same commitment? Some do, but I think it’s a question every pastor has to ask themselves, myself included.

What concerns me most about the rise of the celebrity pastor is what Skye Jethani points out in his article, “The Evangelical Industrial Complex & the Rise of Celebrity Pastors.” Jethani points out that the flame of celebrity is fueled systematically by what he calls the “evangelical industrial complex.” This is the complex “Christian” market that sells books, small group resources, preaching resources, DVDs, CDs, and a myriad of other products based on the teachings of high-profile pastors of large churches. Jethani reveals the rather obvious tactic that if content publishers can latch onto a pastor at a large church, they have a sort of guaranteed market in that pastor’s congregation. I believe his insights are as insightful as they are disturbing. Celebrity is inflated by a system whose primary goal is to make money. So the loudest voices – the ones heard onstage at leadership conferences and who get the book deals with the most marketing – aren’t necessarily the most significant, insightful or faithful, just those who can reach the largest market.

So what is our response to all this? Good question. It is a complicated issue with disturbing implications, and I’m not sure there is an easy answer to how we respond. But for those of us who endeavor to lead God’s church, I think the question Mike Breen poses is a good one to ponder. So I’ll leave you with that:

In what ways are your decisions made by a subtle undercurrent of ambition and a hope for celebrity?

It’s Not About the Lab Rats

If Lance Armstrong went to jail and Livestrong went away, that would be a huge setback in our war against cancer, right? Not exactly, because the ­famous nonprofit donates almost ­nothing to scientific research. BILL GIFFORD looks at where the money goes and finds a mix of fine ideas, millions of dollars aimed at “awareness,” and a few very blurry lines.

The article raised an interesting question that we discussed as a staff: Does contributing to awareness about a need or cause make you feel like you’re helping without actually helping? The article raises disturbing questions of whether we really know where our money goes when we contribute to organizations. Gifford makes the point that most people who buy the little yellow “LiveStrong” bracelets believe that by doing so they are contributing to cancer research and helping to fight cancer. The truth is that none of that money goes to research. While the value of the LiveStrong programs that the money is used for is debatable, the point is that whether or not buying one of those little yellow bracelets actually helps in the fight against cancer is questionable. Yet everyone who has bought one or contributed to LiveStrong did so, because they thought they were helping the cause. And after they had done so they felt like they had helped. So did giving in this way effectively anesthetize them from feeling the need to continue contributing to this need?

These days there are hundreds, probably thousands, of organizations that claim to be working for the common good by addressing the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of our world. The question is, how much of that work is engaging those needs through action and how many are just raising awareness? And at what point does contributing to awareness about an issue make us feel like we’re helping when we really aren’t? Where has our awareness anesthetized us from actively engaging? This conversation helped reinforce our desire at New Denver to develop strong relationships with the people and organizations with whom we partner to contribute to the common good of our community, our city, our country, and the world. We need to make good choices about where we invest our time and resources and ensure that we aren’t just raising awareness about issues but also actively engaging the issues. Awareness is a good thing – a necessary step before engagement. But it’s not the final step.

To close this post I’ll throw out some deeper and more personal questions that this raised for me, and I’ll come back in a later post (more likely a series of posts) to address them. Has the way we’ve presented Jesus and the gospel effectively anesthetized people from discipleship (the process of actively following him with their lives)? By focusing on gathering large crowds to church on Sunday and teaching about Jesus have we raised awareness about him and given people the feeling that they’re following him when they really aren’t? Have we truncated the full message of the gospel into the plan of salvation (read Scot McKnight’s book King Jesus Gospel to understand what I mean by that) and called people to a decision instead of discipleship? Has doing so given them the impression that their journey of faith is complete when in fact they have only taken a first critical step?

Awareness is an important and necessary first step, but it cannot be our last step.

Below are (most of) my notes from today. Unfortunately Evernote let me down for the first time and I lost some notes from the afternoon session. As with my previous posts where I share notes from a conference or class, hopefully these will make some sense. If anything in the notes intrigues you, check out their book. It’s a worthy read.

Notes

Introduction (their story)
* Oak Hills followed Willow’s seeker-driven model of church. They grew quickly and saw tremendous external results. Looking back they realize that this approach was driven by the paradigm of seeing the Christian life as a two-stage process. The first stage is about getting them to make a decision about what they believe about Christ. This decision secures their eternal salvation and “gets them into heaven.” The second stage is the process of Christian growth and discipleship. While it is not presented this way, this is more of an optional step. The decision is what is most important.
* Oak Hills’s approach to their Sunday service was summed up in the slogan, “You’ll be surprised.” The goal was to surprise people and cause them to reconsider their perception about church. The problem is that when you surprise them one week you’ve got to figure out how to do it again the next. The expectations get higher and higher. This forms people spiritually. It creates a paradigm of church that is based on entertainment.
* They realized that by using the tools of consumerism, it wasn’t just a bait and switch – it was working against people rejecting the values of the world and embracing the values of the kingdom.
* How has your weekend service changed? Focusing on God’s story of redemption (Robert Webber model influential), engaging with the church calendar.

What is the Gospel?
* Mark 1:15 – Jesus announces the good news that the kingdom of God is here and available. We are invited to live in “the Way” (Acts 19) of Jesus. Jesus announces the kingdom and invites people to follow. This was his understanding of the gospel. This is not the understanding in the broader evangelical subculture. The understanding of the gospel in that context is that Jesus came offering forgiveness of sins, and the response is to believe that and receive forgiveness.
What is Discipleship?
* In the first chapter of Oak Hills discipleship was equated with attending church, getting in a small group, and serving in the church.
* As time went on, they began to try and break down people’s preconceived ideas. Often as they tried to explain discipleship they would often bump into preconceived ideas (e.g. “walking in the Spirit”, discipleship programs with a focus on completing a course of study).
* One tool they used were “one thing” groups. These groups helped people to identify the one thing in their life they felt God wanted them to change. The group then focused on helping people take steps to address their “one thing.”

Ecclesiology
* Our current understanding is based on the church (organization) is the end game. Our goal is to get people engaged in the activities and programs of the church. The end game is the great commission. The goal is to establish beach heads (church planting, Willard’s analogy) that will provide encouragement and resources to people to live as part of the kingdom of God in their lives.
* Judgmentalism can arise as your understanding of discipleship and the role of the church changes. There is a danger to see yourself as a part of an enlightened few who really “get it.” “One of the problems of the missional movement and the spiritual formation movement is that they often badmouth the church.” We need to see ourselves as a small part of a bigger movement. Just as monastic orders found their place to exist and influence the Catholic church, and the Methodist movement started within the larger Anglican church.

Afternoon Session
* “Does the church (the organization) matter?” There was tension between formation and the organization. After wrestling they concluded that it does. Not just the organic church but it’s local organized expression.
* The nature of the church is such that there is going to be a diversity of devotion within.
Ambition/Consumerism:

Co-Pastoring:
* “It is easier to talk & teach about formation than it is to do it. Yet it is impossible to teach it unless you’ve lived it.” -Mike Lueken
* “I believe God is more honored by formative work done in the shared process of decision-making than by an expedient decision.” -Mike Lueken

What Now?
* There is a tendency in all of us to want to know “the path.” We all want answers. The hard answer is that we all have to find our own path in our own context.
* Willard’s Vision – Intention – Means is a helpful path forward. Vision – imagine what your life would be like if you stopped trying to live up to an expectation you know you can’t reach and began trying to live in step with Jesus, learning to become who he intends you to be. Life can be substantially different.
* Take a subversive approach. Don’t try to go top down, come from the bottom up.

Books/Authors Mentioned:

* Mulholland – “Invitation to a Journey”
* Robert Webber
* Willard (vision/intention/means)
* Chris Heurtz’s book about life w/people on the margins.

As I sat there thinking I was stunned to realized that after living in Atlanta for twelve years and doing ministry there for over seven years of that time, I knew very little about churches in the Atlanta area outside of the church I worked for and its associated campuses. Oh, I could recall some big churches I knew of and had even listened to a few radio broadcasts or watched some messages on local TV. But I didn’t know any pastors or churches well enough to make any recommendations to my friend.

This struck me as especially odd, because our experience in Denver has been so vastly different. Thinking back on our first three years in Denver, one of the things I am most grateful for are the good friendships I have made with pastors around the city of Denver. Maybe our experience has been so different because we’re a church plant and went looking for anyone and everyone who could teach us about our new city when we first arrived. Maybe our experience has been different because when we went to them, the pastors of Denver welcomed us with open arms without a hint of territorialism or competitive spirit. Maybe it’s different, because in a city as spiritually apathetic as Denver, there’s no need to be territorial. Like-minded church leaders who desire to reach those who don’t know God realize there’s more than enough work for all of us. Maybe it’s different here simply because we made the time and put the effort into making connections.

Whatever the reason, I am grateful for our experience here. I’m not just grateful for what New Denver Church is doing but for what is happening in this city through the combined efforts of the Church of Denver – the Body of Christ, living and active, advancing the kingdom of God. I’m grateful for our friends who pastor churches here in Denver and for the friends we have who are part of their congregations. Great churches here in the city like Denver Community Church, TNL, Bloom, Fellowship Denver, Adullam, and many more around the metro area (I probably shouldn’t have started listing…too many more to type…I’m sure I’ll be hearing from the guys I left out…apologies!). We regularly send people who don’t feel like they fit at New Denver to these other churches in town, and they do likewise for us. I’m grateful for this bigger vision. I’m grateful that I get to be a small part of a much bigger story.

My only regret is that I didn’t do ministry like this sooner. I regret that there’s not a list of pastors in the Atlanta area (outside the North Point network) that I pray for. That I cheer for. That I consider friends. If you are in ministry and you are reading this post, ask yourself this question:

Who are the pastors or ministry leaders in my city who I consider friends?

I know we’re all busy, and I know there is more to do in your church/ministry every day than you have time to do. This is not something that will ever be urgent. But I believe it is vitally important. So make the time. I don’t think it’s something you’ll regret.

**Images from Flickr user Ali Smiles, used under Creative Commons license