Reaching Out in an Anti-Church World: Part 3: Some Stats

Last week I talked some about the increasingly negative opinion many now hold about the church. Well, I now have some stats to back that up from a book I’m reading by Ed Stetzer called Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them. The book is based off of research done by Lifeway research. Among the un-churched today:

39% do not feel they would be accepted in a church

67% fell the church is full of hypocrites, people who critize others for doing the same thing they do themselves

90% believe they can have a good relationship with God without the church

58% of unchurched people today WOULD attend church IF people there cared about them as a person. That’s even more significant when you figure 20% of people in the survey are avoid atheists who are unlikely to respond they would attend church under any circumstances.

Anyway, don’t want to just post Ed’s book here. If you want to get a really detailed view of whose not going to church, why they aren’t going to church, and how some churches are actually getting them in the door, to the cross, and into the front lines, pick-up or digitally grab Ed’s book

Actually Connecting People to God’s Church

As a follow-up to some of the things I’ve been talking about the past week I wanted to share some practical steps we are taking here at Central Reformed to take another step towards sharing the gospel in a growing anti-church world. If you’re not part of Central Reformed maybe this can start your mind going on ideas to connect people where you are, and if you are part of Central consider this your homework for the week!

We are trying to take very seriously the importance of getting people connected to God’s Church, which I believe is a very Biblical thing. Look at Acts 2: God moves in a huge way at Pentecost, Peter brings an amazing message, and then new and old believers gather and connect together. Presto! You have the Church. To me that seems to be a typical and solid pattern for personal faith growth: God moves, somebody acts somehow in your life, then you get connected and grow within the church. As I’ve talked about this past week that third part seems to be where problems arise in this growingly anti-church world. So, here are some practical ways we at Central are trying to address the issue so that we can be part of God’s spiritual growth process and not a barrier.

1. Connect, not greet: I’ve grown to dislike the word greet in Church because it simply means you say “good morning” to someone. The pastor says “now, turn and greet those worshiping with you this morning” and we flip on the “good morning” robot switch in our mind. 45 seconds later we’ve successfully said good morning to 20 people, even if we have no clue who they were and never really looked them in the eye. What we want people to do here at Central is CONNECT with people. Learn their name, get to know something about them, and let them know something about you. Maybe you’ll have to hit the pause button on conversations with your friends, but you’ll make a huge and positive impact on somebody else by truly taking time to connect with them.

2. Connect people to the church: Kinda what it’s all about right? At Central we are trying to make this really really simple for our members. Here’s three easy ways to get a visitor connected to Central:

A. Introduce them to someone other then yourself. This can certainly be a staff member, or it may just be someone with some similarities to that person (i.e. age, gender, occupation, neighborhood they live in, etc.). Show them that multiple people are excited they are here and would love to help them connect to God and His church.

B. Fill out a “connection card” if you’ve met someone new. This card has a place to put their contact info and any other good tidbits for us to know. At Central these are located at the edge of the desk in Andy’s office, and there is an obviously marked spot to hand them in there as well. I know you may feel you are betraying someone’s trust or selling their info to Spammers And Telamarketers Association National, but the purpose of these cards are simply to help us as staff connect people to God and His church. Trust me, they will be used for no other purpose.

C. Guide people to our Welcome Center: For the time being at Central this will be a temporary set-up in our West Entryway. If you meet someone new this is the perfect place to guide them. Here they can ask any questions they may have about the church AND get a ton of info aimed at helping them get connected. Every first time visitor receives a specially designed welcome bag that contains a general brochure about the church, a catalogue detailing dozens of ways for them to get involved, a new church cookbook as a gift, and soon a DVD that will detail various aspects of the church. Part of the idea here is to welcome people and give them the red carpet treatment, BUT it’s largely aimed at helping them get connected to God and His church is a big way. We’re not about raking up numbers for Central, but about seeing people meaningfully connected to God.

So, wanna blow the perception that the Church is a closed organization full of judgment out the window? Then purposefully look for opportunities to make a meaningful connection with people on Sunday mornings AND help them to connect to your church. At Central we hope we’re helping to make this easy for you, because we really want the WHOLE church body to be the hands and feet of Christ each and every Sunday morning.

Sharing God in an Anti-Church World: Part II

As I talked about yesterday one of the lovely side benefits of being in ministry is hearing the perceptions, mostly negatively, of those who are outside the Church. While there are many complaints I hear, as well as many reasons people tell me they stay out of the Church, here is numero uno (and it’s #1 by a LONG SHOT):

The Church is SO judgmental: This is the one we all wish we had a nickel for every time we’ve heard it right? This is BY FAR the number one complaint I hear from people I talk with. Many have felt the church reject them in some way, often due to their choices (living with someone before marriage, coming out, an arrest, drinking, etc.). Others simply feel all the church does is cast judgment and rage against society, with the issue of homosexuality seeming to be the one I hear about the most. It doesn’t help, fair or not, that this is often the way the Church gets portrayed in the media. So the question becomes: how does the Church deal with the judgment perception problem? Here are three thoughts I have:

1. Keep following the Word: I’ve never bought the thoughts of some that we need to throw out, or even hide from, what’s in the Bible. The Bible was never politically correct (ah, hello, virtually every major New Testament character was put to death because of the “political incorrectness” of their thinking), and it’s likely to never be. As Christians we believe that humans sin, and one of our goals is to help in limiting that sin in the word. Therefore, we have to call sin sin, and sometimes that means confronting people with their sin (which some would call judging). It may not be PC, but I do think it is true to JC. Now, that being said…

2. Keep following Grace: I think many Christians have a super “Tim the Tool Man Taylor” type toilet for flushing grace and forgiveness down. We need to remember what was fundamentally said about Christ: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him John 3:17. You see, like the high school girls who feel the constant need to point out my lack of fashion sense, Jesus comes into the world and calls out sins. Look at the likes of Zacchaeus, Levi, Paul, and the Woman at the Well. Messed up, sinful people, yet Jesus pours into their lives despite the sin, and the result is salvation. You see, I think the point of any judging we do as Christians should be to lead to God’s perfect Grace. I think that’s Jesus’ model, and thusly the one we should be following. When I was in high school I made a lot of poor choices. I had a friend named Stacia in my youth group who knew exactly what sort of life I was living, and she invited me over to talk about it. But here’s the thing: she approached it with love and with the purpose of making my life better. There was no name calling, anger, or belittling. She simply showed me love and led me right back to God. Had she simply ended our friendship or name called me to death I, in my high and mightiness back then, would have exited the church faster then Iowa exits the football national title race each year. People who are deep in sin don’t need to have it thrown in their face: they need to be loved as Christ loved us. And, I should add, we need to always make sure that the first person we confront about sin in life is ourself (see Matthew 7:3-5).

3. Keep being for something! Have you ever known someone who seems to be against everything, but seemingly for just about nothing? Do you really have any desire to be around them? As Christians we have so much to be for. We are for helping the poor. We are for reaching the lost. We are for positively transforming the world. We are for a better life for all. The Bible is FOR so many awesome things, so why lean so heavily on the negative? The Church needs to be balanced, being for as much (if not more) then they are against. In doing this we will do a better job of being the Church, reaching the lost, and truly being the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

So, let me wrap this up. I think some of the first steps we as the Church need to take in reaching out to a growingly anti-Church world is

1. Keep following the Word, even when it may not always be politically correct

2. Always remember that anything approaching judging needs to be done with the goal of leading to grace, forgiveness, and salvation

3. Don’t become a collection of naysayers, but remember all the things we as Christians should be positively for.

Sharing God in an Anti-Church World: Part 1

We’ll start with sin confession time this afternoon. There are days when I’m traveling through airports (or, if you know me, it is much more likely that I am simply stuck in an airport), running into old friends, or meeting someone for the first time when I absolutly cringe when the inevitable question of “what do you do for a living” comes up. When I respond with “I’m in ministry” there’s about four possible reactions:

1. “Awesome! The world needs more people like you!” I agree whole hardily with this obviously very intelligent and knowledgeable person (because, lets face it, the world does need more overweight, Hawaiian shirt wearing, greasy food eating, Cornhusker loving people), and the conversation goes on its merry way. (10% of the time)

2. “That’s great! Wish you were at my church because…” After 45 minutes of complaints about everything from music, to sermons, to church politics, to the affinity for their pastor’s hair to resemble that of Donald Trump, I finally get to walk away. (20% of the time)

3. “Oh… Well, look at the time, better go.” This is followed by a look of such disgust and dismay one would swear I had morphed into a Minnesota Vikings Quarterback. The days of wide spread respect for clergy are LONG gone. (20% of the time)

4. “Hmmm. Yeah, I used to go to church, but it’s just so judgmental and there is so much fighting that I don’t have any desire to go. I love God though, just not the Church.” Often the conversation will go MUCH longer then that, with a whole litany of pain and disappointment in the Church listed. (About 50% of the time)

Honestly, sometimes I just want to say “oh, I’m a speaker” or “I teach,” partial truths that would help me avoid the 90% of responses I just really don’t enjoy. Yet, the reason I do what I do is because of  just this: because so many people have a negative view of the Church and are choosing: A. to walk away from it or B. to never come towards both it and the perfect Savior that stands at its head. In living out the Great Commission one is inevitably going to run into every negative view of the Church imaginable, which is admittedly far from fun. On the other hand, one of the most exciting things I am privileged to witness in ministry is when people are able to break through the negative and either come to a saving faith in Christ or return home to Christ’s Church. It’s truly an amazing sight, and it’s a task I hope most of you would jump at.

So, here’s what I want to think about the rest of the week: how do we effectively evangelize in a world that is so increasingly not only un-churched, but de-churched? How do we convey God’s gospel of grace in an environment that is increasingly hostile and turned off of church (a hostility that, sadly, is based in some level of truth)? Tune in over the next week as I share some thoughts, and feel free to jump into the discussion.

De-Junkafying Your Marriage

This weekend I had the honor of speaking at a friend’s wedding in Decorah, IA (Very cool and hip town by the way, except for the Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace Pepsi Machine I found downtown). I thought I’d share this morning some of the things I shared in their wedding message. For their passage they chose Song of Solomon 8:6-7, so my message was based off of that.

Since our family just moved from Wisconsin to Iowa a month ago moving is still very much on my mind. When we began preparing for the move we started realizing how much junk we were holding on to. In fact, one load to the dump alone weighed 1.2 TONS, and included no furniture or anything remotely close to heavy. It was simply 1.2 TONS (thats 2,688 lbs for those scoring at home) of stuff we had rather pointless held onto. After all that junk was cleared out we could not believe how clean and awesome our house felt, and we really wished we would have lived without all that stuff the past five years. Marriage faces a similar problem, as it too can get WAY to full of “junk.” In the case of marriage the “junk” I am refering to are things like hobbies, social life, work, etc. Basically, things that keep spouses from truly relating to one another. Like 99% of the junk that was in our house most of this stuff is not necessarily bad, its just when you let too much of it into your life it can begin suffocating your marriage. Song of Solomon verse 7 gives us a good test for when certain things should be dumped out of our lives: If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. God tells us that love is GREATLY more important then all the fun and material junk in our lives. If you are starting to feel disconnected from your spouse in your marriage read verse seven and let it remind you that love trumps that stuff in life, and start taking some junk out of your life.

There’s a second kind of junk that is in and of itself dangerous. My college room mate once bought a spoiled, un-butchered, chicken for $4, placed it in his fridge, and forgot about it for a month and a half. Soon not even the seal of the fridge could protect our room from the horrendous smell, which was worse then even middle school boy armpit. I spent several nights in someone else’s room until our room could get aired out. That one foul thing nearly literally ruined our home. Marriage is similar here as well. If you let some nasty sinful habits (in many cases it takes only one) into your life you can very quickly ruin a marriage.  God again gives great advice in this passage. Verse 6 says: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. To set love as a seal on your heart means that you filter virtually all decisions in life through the question: “how will this decision affect the love my spouse and I share?” To seal love on your arm means that you visibly live out that love throughout your life. Want to keep dangerous junk out of your marriage? Start regularly asking yourself how decisions will affect it and carry that love you have for your spouse into everyday
life. When we keep the sin out love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. 

Don’t live in a junk filled marriage. Take out the clutter and keep the dangerous sins out, and you will have a marriage that will be strong and built to last.

Here we go!

A few years ago I had a lot of fun running a blog for the youth ministry I led in Hingham, WI. However, as things really grew and got crazy busy in our ministry I kinda fell out of the blogging habit (plus I got into a Facebook addiction, discovered teenagers only like to read 20 words at a time, and kept having to spend all my time protecting my food stashes from preying teenagers). As I start my new adventure as the Director of Outreach at Central Reformed Church in Oskaloosa, IA I want this to be a place where I can share what’s going on in our ministry, share thoughts on reaching others, ramble periodically about what is wrong with ________ sports team and why I know considerably more then the coaches and players that actually have experience and talent. So, please join in and follow along as we reach Southern Iowa one small step at a time!

The joys of getting started

I remember being an upperclassman in college and watching the freshmen come in for the first time. Many of them tried to come in with some degree of swagger, trying to alert the campus that they were a big deal in high school and expected the same here. I hate to say it, but I often took great joy in seeing them buzzed down to size. The cries of the 4.0 high schoolers and they discovered what a B looked like, the “what a stupid coach” screams of athletes who went from town poster boy to fifth on a five man depth chart, and the wandering stares of Mr. and Ms. Popularity as they wondered aimlessly in anonymity.

To a degree I currently feel their pain as I adjust to a new church, community, and role. Not to say I was some “big shot” in my last community, but I had been there long enough that I knew it, it knew me, and there was a comfort level there.  It’s a bit of a system shock when you go from being very connected in a community to being totally disconnected. It’s even more of a challenge when your totally disconnected to the community AND supposed to be REACHING said community! Here are a few things I am already learning about such a transition:

1. Slow and steady does actually win! Shocking to a competitive “all in” quasi-workaholic guy like me, but its true. I remember a new person in my last community coming to check-out our ministry, taking page after page of notes on all the stuff we were doing. By the end of the tour and meeting he looked forlorn and overwhelmed, confessing to me he was so far from building his ministry well because it lacked so many things we were doing. I quickly conveyed it had taken four years of sweet, tears, angst, and even some middle school blood to get everything where it was (and it was still FAR from perfect!). One of my key phrases right now is: don’t focus on what’s not in place, focus on getting it in place one careful step at a time.

2. Knowing is 90% of the battle: well, 90% is entirely fictional and arbitrary, but here’s the point. Meeting and relating to people in a new community is so incredibly important. If you want a church to trust you, and a community to actually listen to you, they have to actually know you. Paul was such a model of this. He was so successful spreading the good news because he really took the time to know the people and communities he was working in.

3. Trust in God! I think it’s easy when you’ve got a growing and established ministry to start thinking you’ve got it made, and you had something really key to do with that. Starting a new ministry is very humbling, and with good reason. The success of reaching out here in Osky has really nothing to do with me. It has to do with following God’s plan for me, this church, and this community. It’s about surrendering and letting God take over. That’s a scary thing for a guy like me to do, but its also an awesome feeling to know this is God’s project, not mine.