The Church is the Vehicle and the Kingdom is the Objective

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and he said the difference between churches is attractional verses missional, while it is not that simple I believe that the mission must come first. Mission stimulates the rest of the Christian life, i.e. worship and edification.

The larger system that churches operate within, seminaries, denominations, and nondenominational associations lead pastors to believe that the church is both the vehicle and the objective. The somebodies within the system are those who build large churches or help others build large churches, which may or may not engage their communities. What matters most in the “church focused” system is that a church grows.

When church leaders feel pressure to focus on the growth of their church, the only community ministries that matter are the kind that help the church grow. Therefore the person who is involved in a hospice ministry is likely to be a nobody, hospice is not a prime area for potential church growth! But, if church leaders buy into the principle that church is the vehicle and the kingdom is the objective, the whole thought process on how and why we “do church” changes.

No Calling Friendly Churches

For thirty years I have been a student of unleashing the church. I have worked with and listen to Frank Tillapaugh, explain the multiple and complex factors that have created America’s fortress churches. I hope my blogs over the last few weeks have helped you to appreciate the severity of the “passion problem” before I try to respond to it. But, I suspect that you, like Frank and me, are more interested in solutions than you are in the problems.

There is no magic formula. Fortunately we live at a time when a growing number of church leaders are genuinely trying to get their people out of the fortress and into ministry. And that’s good because to break down the walls of the fortress we must become much more intentional about being “calling friendly” for the nobodies.

So I am more concerned about what it means to be a church that is calling friendly for everyone. I Googled “Calling Friendly Church” and got 689,000 responses and not one of them was “Calling Friendly Church” hits, not one. That does not surprise me, but it does make me sad. Calling friendly means that a church’s power brokers have been intentional about creating an infrastructure where everyone’s calling is valued. Once there is an infrastructure in place then individuals need to know how to find their ministry callings.

Nobody Cares About Passion…Maybe

Yesterday I had a great discussion with one of the readers of this blog. But just like most of us in a lot of living the focus drifted to the wrong place over and over again. I want to spend a while talking about four roads out of the fortress. By fortress I mean a church that has become more about coming to church than going to reach and disciple the lost. Breaking down the walls of the fortress is a bigger challenge than consistently beating the New York Yankees. That will be good news to my friends Dan Cuomo and Will Pavone. And just as very few teams have been able to consistently beat the Bronx Bombers, very few churches have been able to break out of their fortresses. The acid test for those who do break out of their fortress mentality is simply this: “are we capable of valuing and cheerleading anyone and everyone who pursues his or her call to ministry? Is there an infrastructure in place so that anyone can launch a church recognized community ministry?” In other words, “are we capable of practicing the Priesthood of Believers when it relates to the call to ministry?”

As long as there are nobodies who have a genuine ministry calling that their church is neither able nor interested in recognizing and cheerleading, that church, no matter how successful it has been at church growth, is imprisoned in a fortress of its own making.

A History Lesson On an Elevator

Ok yesterday I had one response to my blog and while it was thoughtful I was reminded that words on a screen do not always convey the experience. I had said my wife, i.e. Kim told me, “I needed to get in the real world!” when talking about people cussing. In no way does she condone or think it is great. She like most of us has the “Up Tight” degree. I still remember Frank conveying this story to me. Twenty-five years after graduating from Long Beach State, with a degree in “Up Tightness,” he saw and heard the impact of the filthy speech decade up close and personal. He was on an elevator in a Denver high-rise apartment building when a young lady, who was furiously searching in her purse for car keys, stepped into the elevator. Realizing that she had left her keys in her apartment she uttered the F word in an Eastern European accent,

There were just the two of them on the elevator. She looked at him, and he must have had a pained expression on his face, because she said something to him he will never forget, “I am sorry,” she said, “I would never say that word in my language, but this is America!” She is a European Muslim and she was just trying to fit in. A while later he talked with her again, and she again apologized. Then she told him that the first English phrases friends back home had taught her were laced with vulgar profanities. They told her that these are not nice words, but it is the way everyone in America talks. Vulgarity in America has been tamed and mainstreamed. There are few social circles where there are any taboo words left.

In the 21st century we have enormous resources in our churches, the greatest of which are the nobodies who sit in the pews. Thousand have already been equipped by life to be “front-line” ministers. Most suburban church members can read, many are professionals, and some have spare bedrooms and healthy family lives. They could provide an ideal refuge for a woman experiencing a crisis pregnancy.

The nobodies represent a wide variety of skills; there are mechanics, accountants, doctors, financial planners, cooks, and cops. They are far more equipped for meaningful ministry than they realize. But little of significance will come out of all our ministry potential if there is no passion. Somehow we must figure out how to create church environments where passion in the pew is possible.

We live at a period of history when our government is begging churches to re-engage the poor. Plus we have the resources in our churches to do just that. What community ministries need most is for church leaders to value those involved in ministries outside the walls. We have enough firepower among the nobodies to make a huge impact in every major crises area that our nation is facing. That includes the two million people behind bars and forty two million plus without health insurance.


Of note the only Christian book on social issues in the top ten in 2010 was "The hole in the Gospel." Whew almost a clean sweep. Check it out. The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? Richard Stearns (Thomas Nelson). While I am not a huge fan of the book theologically (By that I mean that it is not too deep, not that it is in error.) it is right in purpose.

1965 to 1975: The Free (Filthy) Speech Decade

I was at my daughter’s sports event the other day and found myself standing next to a lady I had not seen in years. We exchanged pleasant conversation, which on her part was laced with vulgar words. She knows what I do for living but it does not seem to faze her. I mentioned to my wife later that I remembered why I did not like being around this person. She said, “Rich you need to get in the real world, everyone uses words like that.” She went on the educate me that it is considered normal and acceptable even in well-educated parts of society. Really?

When we say that America has transitioned to a Post Christian culture I know that many of you are thinking, “Let’s not return to the good old days of the 1950s and blatant racism, sexism and a host of other ugly cultural problems.” With that I totally agree. But we all would like to see America return to a culture of “civil discourse.”

I was a college student in the 70’s. They were crazy times for me, we rioted against the War, we took anything that someone called a drug and our morals were…let’s just say missing. I had grown up in the county just outside Denver in the 50’s and 60’s. I heard plenty of cursing growing up, including the F word, but to be honest it was restricted to locker rooms, same sex conversation and other “acceptable” places.

The Mainstreaming of Vulgar Speech

By the mid sixties I was hearing the F word being mainstreamed into the culture primarily through the universities and movies. In the 1960s there was a shock value to spouting vulgarities in places that were virgin territory for filthy speech. My friend Frank Tillapaugh went to Long Beach State. At Long Beach State they had a new “progressive” educational devise, a Free Speech Area. Like the Greek City States or the “Speakers’ Corner” in London’s Hyde Park people could express themselves freely in the Free Speech Area. But unlike those other free speech areas the specialty of his Free Speech Area was vulgarity. Regardless of the speaker’s topic his or her oratory was likely to be laced with the most vulgar profanities possible.

From the campus Free Speech Areas profanities quickly became the norm in the classrooms. Frank remembers sitting next to a Nun in a Modern Literature Class. They were the only two who didn’t freely express vulgarities at every opportunity. The teacher got a kick out having one of them read passages aloud that contained a litany of other vulgarities. They were pitied because they were perceived as “really up tight” while everyone else had been liberated by profanity without limits.

I am convinced that my neighbor only curses in front of me, and he take’s great delight in saying the F word over and over. I know he thinks I am uptight; my guess is this lady at my daughter’s school event definitely thinks I am uptight and maybe my wife is right I should get over it. But you know what I hate it. So let me ask you a question:
What was the more telling signal that the culture had become Post-Christian: (1) the launching of Playboy magazine (public pornography) or (2) the Free (filthy) Speech decade, of 1965 to 1975, (public vulgarity)?

Please

I posted some thoughts about the poor and no one commented. OK I am going to make some people mad.

Poverty in America? One of the richest countries in the world?

According to the US Census Bureau, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America, including 12.9 million children.

This is despite abundance of food resources. Almost 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in America each year. 700 million hungry human beings in different parts of the world would have gladly accepted this food.

Here are some statistics on the nature of poverty and the waste of food and money in America.

-In this decade, requests for emergency food assistance increased by an average of 14 percent during the year, according to a 27-city study by the United States Conference of Mayors.

-Also in this study, it was noted that on average, 20 percent of requests for emergency food assistance have gone unmet.

-According to the Bread for the World Institute 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes.

-America's Second Harvest (http://www.secondharvest.org/), the nation's largest network of food banks, reports that 23.3 million people turned to the agencies they serve in 2001, an increase of over 2 million since 1997. Forty percent were from working families.

33 million Americans continue to live in households that did not have an adequate supply of food. Nearly one-third of these households contain adults or children who went hungry at some point in 2000.

U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, March 2002, "Household Food Security in the United States, 2000"

Wasted food in America

-According to America’s Second Harvest, over 41 billion pounds of food have been wasted this year.

-According to a study from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, on average, American households waste 14 percent of their food purchases.

Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology who led the study, estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.
Nationwide, Jones says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem.

- Official surveys indicate that every year more than 350 billion pounds of edible food is available for human consumption in the United States. Of that total, nearly 100 billion pounds - including fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, and grain products - are lost to waste by retailers, restaurants, and consumers.

-“U.S.-Massive Food Waste & Hunger Side by Side” by Haider Rizvi
-According to a 1997 study by US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) entitled "Estimating and Addressing America's Food Losses", about 96 billion pounds of food, or more than a quarter of the 356 billion pounds of edible food available for human consumption in the United States, was lost to human use by food retailers, consumers, and foodservice establishments in 1995.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, fluid milk, grain products, and sweeteners (mostly sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) accounted for two-thirds of the losses. 16 billion pounds of milk and 14 billion pounds of grain products are also included in this loss.
Food that could have gone to millions

According to the US Department of Agriculture, up to one-fifth of America's food goes to waste each year, with an estimated 130 pounds of food per person ending up in landfills. The annual value of this lost food is estimated at around $31 billion But the real story is that roughly 49 million people could have been fed by those lost resources.


•Proportion of Americans living below the poverty level: 12.7 percent (34.5 million people)

•The average poverty threshold for a family of four: $16,660 in annual income
•The average poverty threshold for a family of three: $13,003 in annual income
•Poverty rate for metropolitan areas: 12.3 percent
•Poverty rate for those living inside central cities: 18.5 percent
•Poverty rate for those living in the suburbs: 8.7 percent
•Percentage and number of poor children: 18.9 percent (13.5 million)
•Children make up 39 percent of the poor and 26 percent of the total population.
•The poverty rate for children is higher than for any other age group.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Let's Be Honest: Affluent Churches Seldom Make a Difference Among the Poor

The Suburban Captivity could easily be ranked first (From the contest of my last bolg). Certainly churches today are much more influenced by Suburban Captivity than they are the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies. But the earlier controversies had already thoroughly isolated churches and prevented them from seriously engaging the culture.

The Suburban Captivity is important because throughout Church History, the churches that have had the most significant ministries among the poor have always been poor themselves. I was working the phone banks for World Concern years ago and was shocked at the reality that all the people calling in to pledge were mostly poor themselves, but they wanted to share. Where were the wealthy that night? I guess at their small group.

It was during the church’s first three hundred years that it had its biggest impact among the poor. The earliest Christians had very few resources. They didn’t have schools, buildings, or professionally trained leadership. But most of them knew what it felt like to be poor. Consequently they had an enormous amount of passion for the poor of this world, and a strong belief in a better life for all in the next world.

Affluence has crippled us. In early America the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists dominated the landscape. They were the faiths of the Protestant elite in England and were not too concerned with engaging the poor. Then came the new kids on the block, the Methodists, they came from the ranks of the poor and ministered extensively to the poor. It is not an accident that one of America’s most respected charities, the Salvation Army, came out of 18th century Wesleyanism. But as more and more Methodists practiced God’s principles concerning sobriety, honesty, hard work, etc., they became upwardly mobile, affluent and detached from the poor.

The next group who came from the ranks of the poor and ministered back to poor was the Baptists. But as Baptists practiced God’s principles they too became upwardly mobile and affluent. And, like the Methodists, they too largely disengaged from the poor.

(There is a great line in the movie A River Ran Through It; when a Presbyterian pastor is asked, “What is a Methodist?” and he replies, “A Methodist is a Baptist who can read”).

Next came the Pentecostals, they came from the poor and ministered to the poor. Today if there is a ministry in the streets it is likely to have a Pentecostal/Charismatic flavor. But they have practiced God’s principles long enough for most of them to become more affluent, and they are disengaging themselves from their roots as well.

What group of Christians will be the next group to re-engage the poor?

This is the question that ought to be the hot issue in the seminaries of the land. Maybe the 21st century will see a “Community Church” resurgence, that is not just attractional, but to also engages the poor.

Note To Readers: First thank you all for leaving comments, I have not learned how to respond to them yet, but will take some time to do so, in the meantime, I love your insights and more importantly that we have about 1000 people reading and thinking about these issues together. Join the journey and become a follower.

Rank The Four Roads In Importance To You

Ok, for the last month I have been talking about the four roads. How do the Four Roads strike you? Is there one that I missed; one that is more important than those that are cited? Of these four, which is most important and which is least important? In other words, what year is most responsible for killing the passion of the rank and file church member? Why don’t you rate them in order of importance: Here is mine.

1. 1925: The Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversy
2. 1948: The Suburban Value System
3. 1939: The Parachurch Movement
4. 1964: The War on Poverty

The Liberal Fundamentalist Controversies comes first because it created such a wide gulf between the church’s leadership and the people in the pews. The first major splits among Protestant denominations in America came about following the Civil War. But those splits were not over theological matters as much as they were over Northern and Southern issues. It was then that Northern (American) and Southern Baptists, among many others, split. The second round of splits were different; they were the results of the theological issues being battled over in the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies. In the second round Baptists and others didn’t just split, they splintered!

Today we have a bewildering variety of Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. The battles in the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies were all consuming. Plus, for an entire generation, the disagreements were often mean spirited. They took on the spirit of it’s “me and God” against “you and the devil.” In this case the devil might be a post-tribulationist, or, worse yet, in favor of the ordination of females.

Some, looking at the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies, will see Darwin’s publication of the Origin of the Species, rather than the Scopes Monkey Trial, as its beginning. In that case the Controversies dominated the life of the church for two generations, or roughly 80 years. Forty to eighty years of leadership fights in the churches did more than dampen the ministry passions of the rank and file church member, it crushed passion for ministry.

I would really welcome your thoughts on this and you becoming part of the community. Blessings

Stop Consuming For One Day or a LIfe

Today I was reading a tips for Godly lifestyle adjustment piece and one thing it said was, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I want to challenge you to not consume one thing...today, just one day and instead be a generous giver.

In our Caling book Frank and I write about James Hayes, "In an article entitled “Business Urged To Rescue Youth,” in Denver’s Rocky Mountain (When it was still in existence) the former Fortune magazine editor, James Hayes, declared, “Business has replaced the church and government as the dominant social institution, forcing corporate leaders to accept responsibility for educating young people.”"

I hope that the above quote from Hayes and the earlier quote from Krauthammer (Blog Nov. 16, 2010: 1964 and the Great Society and the War on Poverty) gives you as much to think about as they gave to me. One of the “new realities” reflected in Hayes’ statements is that America has transitioned to a Post-Christian nation whose new primary religion is Consumerism. In a nation that worships at the altar of conspicuous consumption educating young people is important. The blatant motivation for business to help educate young people is that people with degrees are much more effective consumers. If we work really hard maybe we can get the 6% of the world’s population living in the U.S. to exceed the 50% of the world’s resources we already consume. Maybe we can push it up to 60 or 70%!

Two things:
1. Please become a follower so I know who is joining in this journey.
2. Please begin to make comments or ask questions, I will interact with you.

Is It Too Late?

Unfortunately most American churches took the government’s vow to champion the poor as gospel. By the mid 1960s churches were stampeding toward the new Promise Land called suburbia. The fact that the government would champion the poor suited most denominational leaders and pastors just fine. After all the people who mattered, along with most of money, were in the suburbs.

The inner cities didn’t look like good, (strategic), investment; it was a matter of good stewardship for white middle class Christian resources to be invested in the “burbs.” White Flight and affluent living in the suburbs became the agenda for middle class American Christians and Non Christians alike.

The impact is evident in several social institutions, but perhaps it is most evident in the differences between inner city schools and suburban schools. Sometime, when you have nothing better to do, check out the parking lot of a suburban high school; and then do the same at an inner city school. One lot will be over full, with mostly classy newer cars, while the other lot will be half empty with a bunch of “Junkers.” Guess which lot is which. Of course the resources on the inside of the school will compare in a similar way, as do the cars in the parking lots.

When the 18th century Wesleyans saw factory kids, who worked 12 to 14 hours six days a week, spending Sundays in the streets; they hired teachers and started the first Sunday Schools. During the second half of the 20th century many Christians who could send their kids to suburban schools, though often not great places, they were much better than the inner city schools. But I have to confess I am even a worse offender, suburban schools were not good enough for many of us including me. So we started hundreds of private schools for our own kids and paid little attention to the poverty of the inner city. And then we wonder why our culture became a Post-Christian culture so rapidly.

How Quickly Government Changes It's Tune

The other day I was at a friend’s house and I looked over and saw a picture of them with President Bush and I thought what happen to all our hopes and dreams. By the mid 1990’s the federal government was warming up to the idea of faith-based organizations being involved in the welfare issues of the country. But in 2000 President Bush dramatically accelerated the faith-based issue. President Bush raised the heart, passion, issue when he delivered a Rose Garden speech on the Faith Based Initiative in the spring of 2001.

“Government can write checks, but it can’t put hope in people’s hearts, or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. That is done by people who have heard a call and who act on faith and are willing to share that faith.” Read between the lines and it is easy to read “people who have heard a call and passionately respond to their calling.”

Involvement of faith-based organizations remained a high priority of Bush’s domestic agenda. In 2002 in a speech at the White House he said:

“I hope that every faith-based group in America, the social entrepreneurs…, understand that this government respects you work. We want you to follow your heart. We want you to do the works of kindness and mercy you are called upon to do.” (from the back cover of Pastorpreneur)

And just this week President Obama signed an executive order making clear that religious organizations that receive federal money may maintain their religious character, but may not include explicitly religious activity as part of any taxpayer-funded program.
The order doesn’t change the basic rules about who qualifies for funding. Instead it tries to balance the desire to drive federal dollars to faith-based groups while clarifying some of the constitutional questions that have surrounded the program ever since former President George W. Bush touted religious charities as a new way for government to deliver social services.

Words that President Bush used like, “call” and “faith” were nonsense to those who launched the War on Poverty. Today government on every level city, county, state and federal is backing out of the welfare business. After being beaten up in the welfare sector for a few decades, word like “call” and “faith” are back in vogue in government circles.

1964 The Great Society and the War on Poverty (Ministry Passion and Social Action)

I have had the privilege of working with a government housing project for several years in DC. It is an African-American community so almost all the residents that live there are African-American. The director of this program reported to me recently that by some estimates, 35% of African-American boys and 11% of African-American girls between the ages of 10 and 17 regularly use drugs. Those are staggering figures and fueled I think by the environment that has been created. It shocks me,and is testimony to the failure of government trying to solve the problem of low-income families in this and every other community. How did we get there?

The War on Poverty may have started with more fan fare than either the Parachurch Movement or Suburbia; but it played a lesser role in creating the Fortress Mindset in America’s churches. Still it played a significant enough role to make it one of our four pillars.

The federal government was engaged in welfare prior to 1964. But the Great Society/War on Poverty signaled the beginning of new era of massive government involvement with the poor. Skeptics of the day said that the primary purpose of the new domestic war was to divert attention from our increasing and unpopular involvement in that other war of the 1960s, i.e. Viet Nam.

Whatever the motive, Lyndon Johnson launched his domestic war with great enthusiasm and fanfare. Those of us who were working on church staffs in the 70s and 80s remember how arrogant and difficult government welfare workers could be. Their attitude for the three decades following 1964 was typically, “we have the money and the expertise to eradicate the evil associated with poverty. So just stay away from the poor, because we have things under control.” That all changed in drastic fashion in the 1990’s.

The War On Poverty: A Social Viet Nam

It is ironic that the War on Poverty paralleled the war in Viet Nam. In both cases the government assured the American public that it knew what it was doing. And from the vantage point of the early 21st century both ventures are now seen as disasters.
Here is a view of the War on Poverty and the Great Society from thirty years later, 1994.

“In recent years, faith in activist government has declined precipitously. The cause is not just Viet Nam and Watergate but rather the fateful turn liberal activism took with Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. Not content with the great middle-class programs like Medicare, Johnson launched a War on Poverty that has since poured trillions down a vast federal sink-hole, leaving little trace- indeed coinciding with a dramatic rise in crime, homelessness and deviancy of ever sort.” (Charles Krauthammer, Time. September 5, 1994).

What the government didn’t realize when launching its War on Poverty is that money and expertise are not the answers. Effective answers to welfare problems must deal primarily with issues of the heart and dignity. “Dignity is sacrosanct, and when it is abrogated, there is a heavy price to pay.” (Somebodies and Nobodies, p. 132). Of course that doesn’t mean that government can’t play a role in helping the poor. Nor does it mean that nothing good came out of the War on Poverty. But we think Krauthammer is right, there was very little “bang for the buck.”

We Really Lost That War

The other day a friend asked how I have the time to write my blog and on top of that she did not agree with much of it, so it got me thinking.

When the events and staff meetings are over, the pros are exhausted. They seldom have much time to rest; cause “Sunday is a comin soon.” (Did you ever wonder how the Seventh Day Adventists do it?). It is not just that Sunday is coming soon, so are hundreds of other consumer events on the typical church calendar, Holiday services, Fall Festivals, Mid Week Services, Pot Lucks, Picnics, etc.

Over the years I have learned that church staffs are seldom opposed to ministries that target groups of people who are beyond the church walls. But their plates are overly full with all of the consumer events going on within the walls. There is no time or energy to even consider ministries in the community. Or, to use a different metaphor, there is only so much room on their radar screens; ministries to target groups of people tend to be “below the radar.”

Consumerism in 21st century America is rampant, both inside and outside the church. Since WWII American Christians have accumulated more facilities and resources than any generation of Christians in the 2,000 year history of the church. And during that same period of history we have transitioned to a Post-Christian culture. What an irony, the generation with the most resources, is the one that lost the culture!

The consumer mentality encouraged by our Shopping Mall culture has had a lot to do with our nation’s transition to a Post-Christian culture. When the outside world looks at the church they see much of the same self-centered, consumer mentality that rules in the malls. No wonder the early suburban developers often gave lots to churches. They saw the church’s function, as Winter put it, as “religious parks and recreation for the middle class.”

So far we have looked at three of the Fortress Mentality’s Four Pillars:

1925: the Scopes Monkey Trial and the ensuing Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies 1939: the arrival of Inter-Varsity and the Post World War II Parachurch Explosion
1948: the building of Levittown and the Suburban Captivity of the Church.

While the first three pillars are more important than the fourth, the fourth pillar is worth looking at.

By 1964 the American church had turned inward and the Para Solution to local ministry opportunities was universally accepted among Protestants, both liberal and conservative. But there was still one more blow to passion in the pew to come. It would discourage what little sense of urgency for local mission that a church might have. The final pillar was President Lyndon’s Johnson’s bid for a Great Society. He upped the ante for the government’s welfare role considerably by launching the War On Poverty in 1964. And we did not and have not won that war.

I want what is mine and while I'm at it I want yours too!

Within the suburban mix is the new, since 1948, phenomenon of the suburban shopping mall. The mall is the center of suburban life. The reason to gather at the mall is three fold, to socialize, to consume and be entertained. In Winter’s book he says the reasons for going to a suburban church are remarkably similar to the reasons for going to the mall.

In Church Growth circles the analogy of a church functioning like a shopping mall is common. Smart churches are full of boutiques where consumers can find a wide range of services to meet their felt needs. Churches have Men’s Ministries, Women’s Ministries, Youth Ministries, Children’s Ministries, etc. Think about it: we are the first generation of Christians in 2,000 years to use the expression, “church shopping?”

Of course there is nothing wrong with providing ministries that people are shopping for. We have both spent our fair share of time dealing with shopping list issues in church staff meetings, and we feel no need to make any apologies. But let’s not forget that the Shopping Mall mentality begins and ends with consuming.

Consumerism in middle class America is voracious. How else can the fact that about 6% of the world’s population living in America consumes 50% of the world’s resources and produces an inordinate amount of the world’s pollution? It’s all that wrapping on all the stuff we buy at the mall, and the gas we use to get there in our really over sized vehicles! (We will resist asking the question, “What would Jesus drive to shop till he dropped at the mall”)?

Get Clean or Don't Come To Church!

I saw one of my friends (Wes, he is a follower of this blog, God bless him) tonight and he told me after reading this blog he was surprised I worked at a church. That really did not surprise me because at most churches people that work at churches can’t say what they are thinking. Much less be themselves and still get to be a part of a suburban church.

Chuck Smith, the founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement; describe a crisis in the original Calvary Chapel when it was still a tiny church in Costa Mesa, California. It was the 1960s, in the early days of the “Jesus Movement,” and some street kids began attending their services. The kid’s dress didn’t conform to the suburban expectations, and even worse, like MOPS, they were tracking a lot of dirt into the building. Since these kids spent a lot of time on the beach, their dirt was in the form of sand, which was even a bigger housekeeping headache!

What should the church do? They held a business meeting to answer that question. Someone put a motion on floor, “not to allow anyone to attend services if they weren’t wearing shoes and if they had long hair.”

Keeping the Riff Raft Out by Making Them Pay for Their Pew

In Wesley’s England families paid an annual fee for their pews in some aristocratic churches. If you couldn’t afford to buy a pew, you couldn’t attend that church. It was effective, it kept the kept the riff raff out. But, in Wesley’s day it was just the aristocrats who function as Christian elites. Today, in America, it is the broad suburban middle class fighting to keep the riff raft out.

Not sure of the exact numbers that Chuck Smith faced in the motion, but the motion was defeated by one vote, something like 8 to 7. And once again, the rest is history. The Calvary Chapel Movement like MOPS has become one of the great stories of the 20th century American church. But both were almost killed by suburban church power brokers, who in their search for the American Dream, made housekeeping issues a top priority.

We figured out how to deal with that at a church I worked at in Southern California, we just locked all the doors. That way only those of us with combination's and keys could use the rooms we wanted to keep nice and neat and clean.

By the mid 1960s American churches had moved from Liberalism vs. Fundamentalism which pitted:

Right and Wrong Vs. Life and Death

To the Suburban Captivity which pitted:

Neat and Clean Vs. Life and Death

Follow Me...HCYKWJWDIYDKWHD

Evangelist Billy Graham visited the Bush vacation home in Maine in 1985.
At that time, George W. Bush said, he was an occasional reader of the Bible, which he viewed as "a kind of self-improvement course." During that well-known walk with Graham, the evangelist said the point of the Scriptures was to follow Christ, not just to improve himself. Today nobody wants to follow anybody. Everyone wants to be the leader, Christ still calls...follow me. Several years ago I worked for a Christian publisher, during that time the WWJD fad hit Christians. It stood for What Would Jesus Do. Everywhere I looked I saw bracelets, chains, Bible covers and the list went on. So at the time we came up with our own little acronym, HCYKWJWDIYDKWHD. We made lanyards, bracelets and connected them to a program that wanted to teach people to follow Christ. Ok, here is what it meant. How Can You Know What Jesus Would Do If You Don't Know What He Did! You learn that in Scripture.Ok it was a dumb little idea, as my friend Stephanie would surely tell me, "Rich, that is so cheesy." Ya, it is, but... it is still true. Join me today and follow Christ.

Take Your Hands Off Me Church

Only God knows how many mission casualties have resulted from the suburban value system’s grip on churches. One near casualty was the international ministry to Mothers of Preschoolers, MOPS. In the early 1980s some women in suburban Denver decided that they wanted to start a ministry targeting the mothers of preschool children. They felt strongly that the culture was giving moms who stayed home with their children a bum rap. From their perspective all the cultural kudos were going to the working women. They saw the Stay at Home Moms with pre school children as a target group to be ministered to. So, without much help or input from church leadership, they started the first MOPS, and it was very successful.

But the power brokers in their church didn’t like what they saw. During MOPs meetings the parking lot was full and cars spilled into the neighborhood. Ladies were parking in the pastor’s parking spot! The moms were tracking dirt into the building, plus they were creating numerous nettlesome housekeeping problems. And in suburbia housekeeping problems are deal breakers!

Also MOPS was not the brain child of anyone on the staff, it flowed out of the ministry passions of some “nobodies.” How dare a bunch of nobodies start a ministry that attracted mostly non church members and created housekeeping problems!

The power brokers were predictable; they began to clamp down on these nobodies who were creating so much havoc in their peaceful, comfortable and clean church. Soon the MOPS pioneers began bailing out of that church, (the first MOPS leaders may have been nobodies but they were nobodies with passion). Several left the church and took their vision with them. Fortunately, they were able to find churches that would embrace and encourage this great new ministry. The rest is history, today MOPS is a large international ministry reaching thousand of moms and their children.

Hitler and Suburbia

Yesterday I looked at a 1958 Chevrolet Four Door Impala. I know it is 2010 but I need a car and I thought why not. After all it is the automobile that got us into our current circumstances.

In 1948 a man by the name of Levitt, being a modest man, built the first suburb on Long Island, New York and named it after himself. Why did suburbs begin appearing in 1948? The answer in two words: “the automobile.”

Even though automobile technology had progressed a lot by the late 1930s the masses did not have enough money to buy cars. One of the promises that Hitler made to the Germans was that following the war there would be “ein wagen fur jeden volken,” (a volkswagen for everyone). But Hitler lost the war and it was Henry Ford who kept the promise.

Post WWII America was an ideal setting in which to launch a massive new automobile industry. Factories that had geared up for war production could switch to producing cars among other things. The depression was over and the masses had money to buy the stuff that the factories could produce. Plus the country is spacious; there is plenty of room for suburban sprawl. It was history’s perfect moment for the birthing of suburbia, and Mr. Levitt did just that.

We would argue that nothing has shaped modern American culture as much as suburbia. The suburbs are more a psyche than they are a location . There is pot of gold at the end of the suburban rainbow, it is called the American Dream.

Amazing isn’t it; ordinary people have only recently been able to live a long way away from where they work. I live 42 miles from my office and think nothing about it. And for the first time in human history life, for the ordinary person, has became divided between the weekend world and the weekday world. The weekday world is full of strangers, toil, tension, pressure and stress. It is difficult to connect what happens in churches to the weekday world. The weekend world is full of family, rest, relaxation, and church life. At least those are the perceptions of the good life in suburbia.

After talking about the suburban psyche in a church service we received the following note from a lady who was in the service that Sunday: “The suburbia I know is not clean and nice. It is full of friends going through messy divorces, wealthy families with no relationships between parents and children. High school students looking for love in all the wrong places. It is clean and affluent on the outside, not so nice on the inside.”

The lady is right; there is a huge gap between the suburbia of the American Dream and real suburbia. The one in the American Dream is safe, clean, peaceful, etc. The rosy description of the suburban American Dream does not actually exist, yet its illusion casts a powerful spell over suburban churches. The illusion creates a value system that we feel is the Godly thing to strive for. Safe, clean and peaceful is what people expect to find the suburban church. Safe, clean and peaceful may be the right adjectives for a social club; but it reads like a list of deadly sins for a church’s mandate to do mission.

Babylon and Suburbia

I recently spent a week staying and serving at an inter-city ministry. The purpose was to serve in that community but mostly it was getting to know the neighborhood kids, the kids that live in this government subsidized housing development. I was and am frustrated with the gap that exist between this community and the resources that could make the kind of difference that turns a kid’s life around. What happen?

Like Israel in the Old Testament the American church has been taken captive. But, unlike Israel we were not taken captive. Instead we willingly rushed into captivity in America’s new destination for the American Dream, i.e. suburbia. In 1961 Gibson Winter wrote a superb book entitled The Suburban Captivity of the Churches. The most surprising thing about the book is the date of its copyright. As early as the mid 1950s, according to Winter, suburbia had largely reduced the role of the American church to, “religious parks and recreation for the middle class.”

That is pretty amazing since the first suburban community in the U.S. was not built until 1948. Throughout the decade of the 1950s the White Flight to the suburbs was unabated. Before the end of the fifties it was already apparent to Winter, an ordained Presbyterian with a degree in Sociology from Harvard, that the suburbs were having a radical influence on the churches attitude toward local mission, and the demise of America’s inner cities.

The cover jacket of The Suburban Captivity of the Churches has the following two paragraphs by the editor of the magazine Presbyterian Life.

“The United States is increasingly a metropolitan society, but within the metropolitan areas in which two thirds of us now live, the Protestant churches exhibit some startling anomalies. They are deserting the cities and pouring money and men into the suburbs. The problems of cities grow: poverty, crime, racial discrimination, and over-crowding.

In The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, Dr. Winter analyzes the origins and direction of the main thrust of Protestantism, including this irrelevance to the desperate needs of the inner city, the emasculated style its suburban life, and the prospects of its renewal.”

This was written in 1961; fifty years later the problems of inner city and suburbs have only gotten worse. Now a growing portion of suburbia is not only distant from the groans of the inner cities, it is also “gated.”

The choice of word anomaly in the quote above was perfect. (Anomaly= Inconsistent with what would naturally be expected.)” For example, when you drive on a normal city street does it strike you as odd to see a Hummer rolling along as though you were in a war zone? Suburban churches with few or none of their people directly involved with the poor are like Hummers on peaceful civilian streets; given the church’s historical commitment to the poor they are anomalies.

Winter’s insights were chilling in 1961, “Deserting the cities, irrelevance to the desperate needs of the inner city,” we now live with the results of a generation of middle class Christian neglect. And it has had a huge price tag for the church. Not only have we lost our culture but in the quote above, “the emasculated style of its suburban life.” In other words and being as polite as I can given the word “emasculated” suburban churches tend to have lost their nerve and effectiveness as well.

Welcome to the Middle Class Religious Club

New Babylonian Captivity of God’s People
God’s Old Testament Kingdom

The Babylonian captivity of Israel was disastrous for the Great Commission in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament God’s people were not told to send missionaries out to preach the gospel. Instead they were told to build a theocracy where God’s rule would result in righteousness and justice for all. When the nations saw the beauty of the theocracy they would recognize the God of Israel and praise Him.

The Old Testament strategy, working at its best, is described in I Kings 10: 9; when the queen of Sheba visited Solomon in Jerusalem. After seeing the beauty of Jerusalem and prosperity of Israel she said, “Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you the on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness.”

While the Jews were in captivity, however, Jerusalem languished. Listen to the report that Nehemiah heard when he inquired about those who stayed in Jerusalem after the exile, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.” (1:3)

Nehemiah’s response was immediate and full of passion, “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” (1:4) Nehemiah understood that Jerusalem was not just another city; it was the key to God’s Old Testament Great Commission strategy. Today the church is not just another organization; it is the key to God’s New Testament Great Commission strategy. And unfortunately the church, like Jerusalem Nehemiah’s time, is not doing well when it comes to Great Commission strategy. In spite of the enormous ministry resources available to churches in Post World War II America, we still managed to loose the culture. Enough for today it is Sunday time for the club...more tomorrow.

Somebodies and Nobodies: The tragedy of rankism

In 2003 Robert Fuller, former president of Oberlin College, wrote a book entitled Somebodies and Nobodies. According to Fuller the two evil non-political isms of the twentieth century, that have been acknowledged, are Racism and Sexism. His book looks beyond those two isms and tackles an unacknowledged evil ism which he calls Rankism. Low rank signifies weakness, vulnerability, and absence of power.

Rankism is vicious because it, “insults the dignity of the subordinate by treating them as invisible, as nobodies.” (pg5). Laity should be subordinate in churches in certain areas. Pastors and elders do have certain biblical authority and responsibilities. But the laity is not subordinate when it comes to their Special Call To Ministry. Some lay people have ministry callings that can have a far greater impact than the ministry of their church’s pastor. I have watched as one such layman first had one book on the New York best seller’s list and now several, he travels around the world for his ministry. His reach is way beyond his local church. And, even though that is true, it is not the impact of one’s ministry calling that should be valued. Every ministry calling should be valued equally, because God values ever person equally. Of all the potential sins of a Church, Rankism is perhaps the most pernicious.

In 1939 the American Parachurch Movement was launched by a ministry imported from Great Britain. While Parachurch organizations are effective and necessary, they in some ways became part of the “mission problem” for American churches. They will continue to be a “mission problem” as long as churches, by default, continue to outsource local mission to these organizations. But churches can be part of “mission solution” if they will intentionally work with them and through the Parachurch organizations.

While 1925 and 1939 played huge roles in the death of ministry passion among the churches’ lay people; tomorrow the date I want to mention may be the biggest “passion killer” of all, i.e. the birth of suburbia in 1948.

“The Greatest Need in Churches Is the Release of Members for Ministry”

Yesterday I wrote about Richard Halverson’s discovery so fast forward thirty years and listen to a quote from Rick Warren. (Just as Richard Halverson was one of America’s most influential pastors in 1972, Rick Warren is one of America’s most influential pastor’s today).

“Napoleon once pointed to a map of China and said, ‘There lies a sleeping giant. If it ever wakes up, it will be unstoppable.’

“If we can ever awaken and unleash the massive talent, resources, creativity, and energy found in the typical local church, Christianity will explode with growth at an unprecedented rate. I believe that the greatest need in evangelical churches is the release of members for ministry.” (Emphasis ours pg. 1 Ministry Tool Box #73).

The release of members for ministry on a large scale will never happen as long as local churches continue to outsource mission to Parachurch organizations. In the future I will discuss how churches can keep mission as an in house experience. Keeping mission as part of the church experience doesn’t mean refusing to work with Parachurch ministries; it just means changing the way that we work with them.

Parachurch Organizations Have the Opportunities, Churches Have the People

The non involvement in local mission by local churches has created a major dilemma for American Christianity. Prison officials in a western state had requested a parachurch organization to provide programs for 27 of its jails and prisons. But they were having a very difficult time coming up with a positive response for any the 27 requests.

Out of the thousands of Christians that attend church every Sunday in that state surely God has wired enough of them to capitalize on the opportunity to minister in 27 jails and prisons. But the organization with the ministry opportunity does not have the platform to communicate with the thousands of weekly pew people. Church leaders have the platform, but ministries in jails and prisons are not a high priority on their “mission list.”

The Local Church/Parachurch dichotomy has created a “mission” dilemma on the American landscape. Parachurch organizations are often well connected and positioned to have an enormous ministry impact. But, Parachurch organizations do not have the people to make an enormous impact.

If the churches fail to see jails and prisons as their mission turf, we will continue to have churches with 22 players on the field and 50,000 spectators in the stands; and we will continue to lose the culture. Churches need Parachurch type ministries to restore passion to the laity. And Parachurch organizations need churches to supply people so that we can re-engage the needy. From a Christian perspective the needy are not just those who are homeless, they are also those who live in mansions, but do so without a relationship to God.

How I Changed My Thinking About the Church

One of the highlights in my life happen on one January weekend when Richard Halverson the Chaplain of the Senate came to stay with Kim and me. He left behind a book he had written inscribed, “To brother Rich- With gratitude to God for your friendship – and loving care when Doris and I were in Seattle. Thanks and blessings and love to you and Kim” – In Christ, Dick Halverson, Acts 20:32, which says, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

Thirty years ago, while pastoring the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, he learned what he called a “significant” lesson. A leading volunteer in his church had recently been elected president of the local school board. The new responsibilities meant this leader would have to cut back on some of his church commitments. At first, he became mad at the thought of losing this great leader. After more consideration, however, he reached a surprising conclusion.

In How I Changed My Thinking About The Church, he shares that conclusion:

“As I pondered the loss of this fine young man…I asked…’how many do we need to really do the work of the church? … many of the men women in the church had several jobs…They were busy with the ecclesiastical establishment. But suppose that each could hold only one job, how many would it take to do the work of that large congregation? At the time, the membership was about 7,000. To my amazement I found that it would require only 365 volunteers to do the work that was required to maintain the program of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood….This meant that most of the members of the church could never have a job in the institution. It followed…that if the work of the church is what is done for the institution, very few, relatively speaking, will ever have an opportunity to do the work of the church.”

Inspiration and Passion are Two Different Things

Worship without mission can deteriorate into performance. When the people in the pews are spectators, the people on the platform feel pressured to inspire them. In the church world it is common to confuse inspiration and passion. Edification without mission can be interesting information; it can even be inspiring information. Therefore, one is more likely to hear lessons on Biblical Characters, which promises to inspire people to read their bibles, than they are to hear a series on the Ministry Opportunities and Challenges Created by High School Dropouts.

What Comes First?

The following statement by Bill Hull, when he was the Executive Director of Church Ministries, Evangelical Free Church of America, captures my feelings about the church and its mission.

‘Managerial guru Peter Drucker tells us that the lesson of the last 50 years is ‘the mission must come first.’ I agree. I believe that mission comes first, before sermons, before pastoral counseling, before board meetings, before adult socials, before pastoral care, before whims and wills of the congregation. In the words of our Lord in Luke 14:25-33, it must come before family, before creature comforts, before self-actualization, before self-esteem, before self help, and before self realization. The mission must be pre—eminent.” (Calling 97, 98)

Hostility Toward Parachurch Organizations

Several years ago my friend Frank was teaching a Doctor of Ministry Class at a well known seminary. He told the students that he would be addressing some leadership from a large Parachurch organization after we finished the class. He invited them to share a brown bag lunch on the last day of class. While they ate lunch they were to tell him what they, as pastors, would say if they were addressing this particular group.

He expected some hostility but was surprised at the intensity of the negative issues the pastors raised. (To be eligible for this class a student had to have been on a pastoral staff for a minimum of two years). There was a unanimous out pouring of negative feelings toward this organization, and other similar organizations.

“They take our best people.” “They are shallow theologically.” “They entice people to give them money when that money should be going to our church.” “They are not accountable to anyone.” Etc, etc.

To a person they demonstrated an “us and them” mentality. It wasn’t that they didn’t have legitimate questions and concerns. Their questions weren’t the problem, the problem was the tone with which they asked their questions. They clearly felt threatened by Para church organizations. What they didn’t seem to realize was that it was their attitudes toward local mission that created the huge need for Parachurch organizations in the first place.

Para Became the Norm

The Post WWII generation of American Christians has come to understand that the normal way for the larger Christian Enterprise to function is for those doing mission to go around the church.


The number of Para church organizations within the larger Christian Enterprise in America is staggering. There are a few dozen that most Christians recognize including:

International Students Inc.,
Habitat for Humanity,
Prison Fellowship
Jews for Jesus, etc.
Campus Crusade,
Joni and Friends,
The Navigators,

But the overwhelming majority of Parachurch organizations are small operations that are unknown outside of a small circle of people. There are thousands of such organizations and they continue to multiply at a rapid rate. When churches ignore these front-line ministries and focus primarily on worship and edification; they create the need for more Para church organizations. Plus they abort the mission potential of most of the people in their church.

Ephesians 4:11,12 gives a clear mandate for the church leaders, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service.” When we equip people for works of service we need to understand that most works of service need to be connected to various people groups. We simple don’t get that and we continue to plug them into the same four or five things inside the walls of the church. What is worse about that is that we then hire staff to protect those same four or five ministries. One time I had a person on staff tell me, “Rich we need to tell these people they should serve in our kids ministry and nothing else. We need them and they don’t want to do what we need them to do.” No wonder we dislike parachurch ministries.

Four Spiritual Laws and We Don't Need You!

Following WWII churches were still deeply embroiled in the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies. But most lay Christians didn’t share the “we are right and you are wrong” passions of seminary teachers, denominational leaders, authors and pastors. Most lay people just want to focus on evangelism and practical Christian living.

The objective of most Parachurch organizations is to meet a person’s practical needs, to share the gospel and teach basic truths, on Christian living, to a wide variety of people groups. The gospel is often boiled down to some version of the Four Spiritual Laws. And when there are converts they are encouraged to help the organization evangelize the people group that the organization is working with. As a result people involved in Parachurch ministries are positioned to share the gospel without a lot of theological baggage.

Arms Without Bodies

Most Parachurch groups see themselves as arms of the churches. But most churches don’t see the Para groups that way. In fact church leaders rarely see the Para organizations at all. Thousands of arms have been created. But they are arms without working relationships with the main part of the body, i.e. the churches. The potential ministry synergy between Church and Parachurch is rarely realized. That shouldn’t surprise us. The Barna research organization has discovered that only one or two percent of the churches, with similar mission statements in similar locations, ever try to work together. Unfortunately churches tend to be consumed by their own internal programs.

Separating Mission from Worship and Edification

Following WWII a dichotomy began emerging on the American religious scene, and it has continued to grow unabated for over sixty years. The dichotomy consists of worship and edification being actively pursued in churches, while mission is outsourced to the Parachurch organizations. The outsourcing has not been done strategically; rather it has been done by default. Parachurch organizations have provided an outlet for lay people whose ministry passion takes them off the familiar roads. Unfortunately, those who want an off road ministry experience usually have to find a Para organization to work with on their own; they seldom get much help or encouragement from their church.

Worship, edification and mission together make the church, The Church. When front-line, personal mission by the lay people is removed from the church, it removes passion from worship and edification.

Without extensive involvement in mission by lay people, worship and edification become gatherings of spectators and performers. There is a popular analogy comparing churches to football games in which the 22 players on the field desperately need rest, and 50,000 people sitting in the stands desperately need some exercise. Churches need mission to be authentic churches. Parachurch organizations, on the other hand, do not need worship and edification to be authentic Parachurch organizations.