My next steps (part four)

Here’s my final “next step” thought from the class I took with Alan. I’ll process more of the ideas from the class later, but these are simply a few of the things I need to apply from the time personally. As with any classroom environment, it’s easy to get stuck in the theory and never get to the action. So, before any of the ideas are processed, it’s probably best to process those actions I feel God’s pressing in on my heart.

You can read the first three posts here, here, and here.

• I am not, but I know I AM – This one isn’t a “next step,” but a feeling I have from the week. Louie Giglio spoke about this “I am not” idea once. I’m not much of anything, but I’m following the God of the universe. He’s where my worth and value come from.In a class like this, I’m always drawn to the people who are doing it -  people in the midst of ministry. I’m doing some things – but they’re very little. Very little. I don’t have much to offer in discussion. But I dive in anyway. It’s both a humbling, and actually freeing, experience.

  I’m excited to have the chance to be a small part of what God’s doing, and I hope that excitement overshadows any feelings of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m really, really good at this.” We’re all in ministry, and we all have the amazing opportunity to be a part of what God’s doing. It’s worth the risk, discipline, and sacrifice every single time. I want to live into that truth.

If at first you don’t succeed, switch the number one more time

There’s an article in the most recent Newsweek about how when cell phone companies recycle phone numbers, some people get interesting phone calls. These people have had the old numbers of folks like Paris Hilton, Madonna, and Chris Rock and end up fielding calls from stars like Antonio Banderas and Gabriel Byrne.

I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve gotten a new number, the only “old number” calls I get are from people calling late at night speaking Spanish.

I’ll just have to keep trying!

My next steps (part three)

The third post in my series of next steps I’m taking after a class with Alan Hirsch. Read the first two here and here.

• Gospels – Most of the communities we talked about centered most of their learning around the Gospels. We get most of what we know about God from Jesus, so we need to spend time studying and understanding him. It doesn’t lessen the need for the Old Testament or the other New Testament writings, but sometimes we’re guilty of focusing mainly on Paul and forgetting about Christ.Jesus is sometimes hard to handle. He’s messy. He says things that challenge how we live life. I want to spend more time embracing that messiness and integrating his words into my life. That means more time focusing on and studying the Gospels.

My next steps (part two)

Continuing from the last post, here’s another next step I’m taking after finishing up The Forgotten Ways.

• Practices – The Western church is all about knowledge. If we KNOW enough, we’ll start DOING the right things, right? It hasn’t really worked, has it? I love how some churches we discussed have embraced practices instead of values.

  Most churches have similar written values. But are most people living them out? Let’s decide as a group how are values are fleshed out in practices – the things we do as individuals and as a church. Humans want to find meaning in what we do, so if we start with the practices, the knowledge will happen as we begin doing them.

  I love the set Small Boat Big Sea uses – BELLS.

  BLESSING: Who have you blessed this week through words or actions and what learning, encouragement or concerns were raised by it?EATING: With whom have you eaten this week and what learning, encouragement or concerns were raised by it?

  LISTENING: Have you heard or sensed any promptings from God this week?

  LEARNING: What passages of Scripture have encouraged you or what other resources have enriched your growth as a Christian this week?

  SENTNESS: In what ways have you sensed yourself carrying on the work of God in your daily life this week?

  I don’t think I’ll simply adopt these, but they may be a good place to start. It’s not a legalistic thing. It’s more of a way to see concretely the things God’s leading me to and how I can make sure I’m actually living them out.

  If Jesus is Lord, how do we – how do I – respond to him in a way that reflects that?

The end is near!

At least for one fictitious wizard’s story.

Grete received her copy of the final installment of Harry Potter today (she’s a purist, ordering each book from England so she can read it in its

original language ), and is eagerly preparing to read it (by reviewing the last book). This is good for the Sampson household, actually. I have a two-week intensive coming up, which means I’ll be doing a lot of reading, too! She’ll be reading about Harry Potter and Voldemort. I’ll be reading about the Moral Vision of the New Testament.

Should make for some interesting dinner conversations!

My next steps (part one)

So I haven’t blogged much about The Forgotten Ways since last Monday’s class. The week flew by! But I will be writing more about some pieces soon.

We finished with the classroom portion last Friday. I’ll just say it was a powerful week – listening to Alan, processing the ideas, hearing other people’s stories and feedback. It honestly leaves me excited and hopeful for the future of church in America and beyond. That’s something I don’t usually hear when talking about new or existing forms of church in America – hope. Our conversations centered on Jesus – following him and empowering others to do the same. I love that it’s really that simple. It starts with a simple statement: Jesus is Lord. Do we understand it? Are we really living it out?

I’ll flesh some of this out later, but for now, let me start by sharing where I’m committed to go because of this discussion. Ideas are just ideas. They don’t mean much. So what changes has this course challenged me to?

Here’s the first one. I’ll post more later.

• Third Places – Working in seminary and church worlds, it’s very easy to become part of that Christian subculture that doesn’t “get” any other culture. We’re completely removed.But it can happen to folks whose lives aren’t filled with seminary and church. We tend to spend most of our time in our first places – home – and our second places – work. But there’s a different kind of connection that takes place in those third places – where people go to hang out, relax, and have fun.

  Whether it be a coffee shop, a cafe, a happy hour, a sports team, or a hobby club, there’s a place where we all can be close to others. These are the places where real spiritual conversations can happen because real connections are made. I’m looking for places I can be intentional about spending my time off campus and outside of the church.

“Can we go in there?”

I’m reading outside in our apartment complex today when two of the kids come up to me.

“What are y’all doing?” I ask.

The older one holds out his half eaten pastry – it looks like some kind of donut hole filled with chocolate.

“You’re eating! That looks good!”

He nods, and then speaks.

“Can we go in there?”

He’s pointing to the fenced off pool area behind me. Now, I’m not a parent, but I don’t think that it’s a good idea to let two kids who can barely speak English and aren’t old enough to attend school go hang out by the pool.

“You’ll have to go ask your mom and dad if you can.”

They scuttle back to their apartment. I continue to read, listening to a conversation in Korean between the mom and the kids.

They come back out. “She said we could go.”

I’m not exactly sure what to do with that info. So I’m supposed to let them in? Am I now obligated to watch them?

Sensing trouble and confusion, I try to change the conversation.

“You guys were making a cool house out here yesterday.” He agrees, but tells me they’re not allowed to build a house with the chairs and a plastic tub anymore. Must not have been approved by the authority figures.

But my plan doesn’t work. He’s persistent (I guess most five-year-olds are) and gets back to the topic at hand with a slightly more pouty tone.

“I want to go in there!” he says, pointing again and squinching his face.

This time, though, he points a little higher. In the direction of our apartment.

“Oh, do you want to go visit the hermit crab?”

“Yes. Crab!” he said. His sister nodded.

Much better idea. I take them to visit the crab, thrilled I don’t have to babysit non-swimmers poolside.

What would YOU do?

This is great …

I got my groove back

Ok. Not really. Never really had it. Never really will.

But, I DID get my favorite groovin’ song back.

When my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost all of my iTunes music (and half my files). I’ve been working to piece together my collection of music from CDs I’d burned in the past.

I’ll be able to recover most of the music, but there’s one song I feared I’d be without. Paolo Nutini’s “New Shoes” was a free download from iTunes a while back. It’s incredibly catchy. Makes me want to dance around in ways I’d never let guests see.

But, through an amazing program found here, I was able to move all of my songs from my iPod back to my computer. It didn’t get all of them, but it got most. And most importantly, I have my New Shoes back.

Life is good.

More traffic?

(This post originally ran here in May of last year. It’s re-running because it fits with some of the recent conversation. Consider it a “Best of.”)

Check out these excerpts from Seth’s Blog:

“So, here’s your choice:
You can have a billboard in Times Square (seen by 2 million people a day), or you can be the keynote speaker at the Allen & Co. annual millionaire media mogul retreat, listened to by about 150 people for an hour.

A no brainer? I hope so.

Of course, it’s not just the demographics. I think it’s the quality of the interaction.”

And he continues …

“MySpace is killing Amazon in traffic.

… It’s just human nature to measure a simple metric, and to want to improve it. It’s human nature to believe that the more people get exposed to your idea, the better you’re going to do. It’s human nature to want to ‘win’, however you define winning.”

It’s a constant battle in any field: numbers or quality. But why is it easier to see in business? It makes sense. If you have to choose between owning MySpace and Amazon, most would chooose Amazon. MySpace may get more hits, but Amazon has a clear, profitable purpose.

What about churches? Is the goal to just gather a crowd? To talk more about what God’s about? What if we were to gather a core and build in a healthy, organic way? What if they could see relationships? Experience Christ today through real service and community?

Amazon sells books. The Church is all about helping people see, get to know, and follow Jesus Christ in a way that transforms them into people who embody love and truth. I’d love to start a giant church, but I’ve realized that most of the time, God works in a way that’s a lot less about me.

Once you start on a healthy growth path, then absolutely, numbers are great! Amazon wouldn’t turn away customers. But it’s a lot easier to grow Amazon’s page hits than it is to figure out how to sell stuff through MySpace.

The thing is, once your culture is set, it’s hard to change the expectations.

“All a long, long way to say something simple:
Whatever your website, I think you want better traffic, not more traffic.”

It must be a generational thing

Now that Facebook is open to anyone (not just college students), I’ve seen more and more posts by guys over that 30-35 year-old mark about how they just don’t get it. It’s funny, because I’ve NEVER heard anyone younger say they don’t get it. Some say they don’t want to waste time with it, etc. But they know why it’s there.

I have to admit, Facebook wasn’t big when I was in college. People were addicted to instant messengers, but that was about it. When Grete and I joined Facebook, we were among about 30 people from TCU in our graduating class. It’s amazing how much it’s grown. My opinion? It’s head and shoulders above MySpace, and a great way to keep in touch with some people.

So, for you older folk, here are a few things you should “get” about Facebook:

• MySpace may have been about numbers of friends, but Facebook is more about interaction.
• Email? Who needs it? A lot of youngsters now just message each other on Facebook.
• It’s a great way to keep in touch with people you haven’t seen in a while. If you just have friends you currently know, you won’t really have much a reason to check it.
• It’s a great way to get to know some of those ’surface friends’ a little better. There’s info on their profiles, you can write something quick on their wall. You can see if they have a blog and share pictures.
• That “no one seeing your profile until you approve them” thing can be changed, but it’s really a good thing. I know who can see my info and who can’t. People still have to be careful, but it’s much easier to manage your info.
• And most important of all, with the status feature, I may not have talked to someone in five years, but now I can know that yesterday, they were fixing tacos for dinner. My life is now complete.

So some of it may seem a little silly to those people immursed in the “real world.” But hey, now that Grandmas have MySpace pages, social networking is a “normal” thing. If you want to dive in, Facebook is cleaner, easier to use, and more private than MySpace.

The Forgotten Ways – Day one, part one

Here’s a quick list of a few things that stood out to me from the first day of class. Before you read, know this: I can’t include everything, so you’re getting a limited context. Read the books!

Also, Alan is great at helping a group understand a problem so they see the need for a solution. If the first day seems negative, it’s because we have to see what’s wrong first. We’ll soon move to what the positive alternatives are.

Finally, Alan articulates something better than most people I’ve heard. He’s not against one expression of church and for another. The type of church we’ll talk about will look different than a mega church, primarily because in many areas, studies have shown that type of church really only attracts about 15% of the people. The problem is, more than 90% of churches are seeking to be that style. Not all of them can pull it off. And even if they could, we’d only be connecting with a small section of the population (15% is the number in Australia, it’s very likely higher here, but probably no higher than 40%). We need to think creatively and theologically about how we can join God where he is and go be the church.

• We’ve never been in a post-Christian environment before. We’ve never been in aspace where we stand in an inoculated culture before. Like we can be inoculated for diseases, much of our culture has been inoculated to Christianity. They’ve gotten a little of some false form of it, and it’s shut them off from having any part of it when the real thing comes around.
• Emerging is different from missional. In a missional church (or as he terms, emerging missional church, mission is the organizing principle. The mission of God determines how the church organizes itself.
• God is everywhere, wooing people to himself. We need to be willing to go to dangerous places (places Christians wouldn’t normally go), listen to the stories people tell, affirm those stories, and while showing how God is working within their stories, point to that alternate ending.
• We need to give that process time and learn the arts of conversation and friendship.
• Constantine is still the emperor of our imaginations. He introduced us to the institution of the church. His using Christianity to unify his empire could have been the worst thing that happened to us.
• Americans are highly mobile. That mobility can lead to an incapacity to relate over the long term. He saw this in the church he worked with in Australia. Young 20-something singles would get a two-year itch where they had exhausted their relational skills and said God was moving them on. He and other leaders pushed back and said no – we’re going to learn to keep relating.

This is just one small piece of our discussion yesterday. I’ll add more thoughts later.

This week – a look at how we ‘do’ church

I’m taking a one-week intensive with Alan Hirsch here at Fuller. I thought a class meeting from 8:30 – 4:30 would be overwhelming and tiring, but I’m loving it! My biggest challenge is thinking critically enough to push back and engage well in conversation, because I honestly agree with most, if not all of what Alan’s saying. He may have expected more of that “push back” from the class than he’s getting … either people agree with what he’s saying or they just aren’t speaking up.

So I’ll be processing some of the thoughts from the class here. I know many of you aren’t the “let’s consider how church should be done in Western culture” types, but if you want to comment, ask questions, push back, or just discuss, dive in and let’s process it together!

(He’ll mostly be covering material from his book, The Forgotten Ways. If you haven’t read it or his earlier book, The Shaping of Things to Come, co-written by Michael Frost, I can’t recommend them highly enough. They’re some of the best books I’ve read on what the missional church can and should look like/value/pursue in a post-Christian Western society)

It starts off edgy and ends with the majority

Seth Godin talked about farmers markets yesterday. I think there’s a church tie-in here somewhere:

The market in my town is now twice as big as it was just last year. New vendors sell muffins, cookies, muffins, cheese, muffins, and yes, frozen risotto cakes in their own disposable plastic tray. Somewhere along the way, the farmer part got left behind.

This brings out tons of people, consumers who would rather buy a sandwich than a zucchini. It’s the normal progression of things–from the edgy early adopter who seeks purity and novelty above all things, all the way through the early majority and then the mass market. As the market grows, it gets, by definition, more average.

You?

Don’t hide …

Some of you asked what I’m preaching on this Sunday. Here’s the bulletin cover for a little peek…