A Tale of Three Churches

Court House Church
These churches see their job as to pass judgement on sinful people and the world on general. They tend to focus on political action, be ingrown, see themselves as persecuted, get distracted by end times stuff, and completely miss the point of Jesus.

Theatre Church
These churches are all about the Sunday show. Their goal is draw all sorts of people together for an hour or two on Sunday and distract them from their pain and problems with songs and stories about Jesus but they tend to send them back out unchanged. People can come to these churches for a long time and still be strangers and if they are honest they have to admit they don;t so much reach out and they allow outsiders to reach in.

Hospital Church
These churches believe their mission is to be the active physical presence of Jesus actively engaged in fixing what (or more accurately who) is broken in this world. They get it that diagnosis is necessary and bedside manner is important but they realize their ultimate goal is to welcome those who come, got get those who don't, and exemplify the life changing love and point them all the healing grace of Jesus Christ. They are drawn to pain and expect to see the sick made well.

Friend of Sinners

As followers of Jesus we seek to be like the one who was known as a "Friend of Sinners" but to often we fall into to ditch of "sinner's aren't my friend" on one side of "my friends aren't sinners" on the other. Perhaps this is the simplest description of the difference between conservative and liberal Christians as well as one of the key problems with each. God help us to stay on the road of being friends of sinners both inside and outside the church.

On an only vaguely related point I attended the Pride week lecture on human rights and hate speech yesterday presented by Mr. Kevin Kindred, he is the president of the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Program (SNRAP) which means he is basically the king of Gay rights activism in Nova Scotia. His presentation was thoughtful, insightful, and frankly I agreed with pretty much every point he made. His basic point is that if we are all going to be allowed to express our views that we all have to learn to be ok with being offended by the people who disagree. He cited some of the most high profile "Christians being anti-gay" cases to go before the human rights commission and basically said that even though he found some of them profoundly offensive he thought they should be dismissed and "christians" should be allowed to express those views. So if you have spent to much time listening to the Dobson-esque conspiracy theorists out there you can, at least in Nova Scotia, take a deep breath. I wish I had a recording of his presentation. What are the odds I could get him invited to the Atlantic District Ministerial to bring us up to speed on these Human Rights / Hate Speech issues?

A Lesson for the Church From the Queer Community

It's Pride week in Halifax and on Tuesday I attended a lecture on the "Queer Community". One of the interesting ideas that came up was that as Homosexuality gains more and more acceptance the movement is loosing steam. The lesson is that if you make the goal of your community the acceptance of your community by the mainstream then accomplishing your communities goal will ultimately be the demise of the community.

We see the same thing when Christianity moves from being opposed to becoming mainstream. In these situations the church, though big, is often at it's weakest. North America is a pretty solid argument for this point. The lesson is this, if we want the churches we are a part of, as well as THE church to maintain it's strength neither our mission nor the motivation behind our activities can be focused on the opposition we invite or our acceptance by, integration into, or domination of the mainstream.

We must become less obsessed with engaging culture and more obsessed with engaging people, we must become less concerned about changing laws and more concerned about changed lives, and we must come to accept the teachings of the master that anyone who truly and radically follows him will never be mainstream. Finally we must set our mission in line with the masters, not the establishment of Christian cultures and nations, not the freedom to practice our religion without fear of persecution, and not even the acceptance of Christianity by the culture makers and power brokers but rather the redemption of all mankind. A movement neither in opposition to or pursuit of mainstream acceptance but rather indifferent to and undeterred by it.

Meet Aggie

IDEAS

I have to say that some of the things I like the most in this world are ideas. I love having, refining, and discussing a fresh idea. I would humbly submit that I am an idea guy. On the journey from idea to execution I'm way better on the front end. If I could have a job where all I did was have ideas I would be perpetually thrilled. Maybe someday God will allow me to staff Deep Water to the point where that is more or less my job. I like to have an idea and then just let it live in my brain for a while. Here are the ideas I have been cuddling with lately. (Maybe next post I'll add the questions I'm wrestling with, I love questions too because they lead to answers aka ideas).

Getting a Dog - I have wanted one for a while. We might be getting one this week. Stay tuned.

Joining Toastmasters - This would be a great chance for me to connect with people who don't follow Jesus and work on my speaking skills at the same time. There is a club that meets downtown and I think I'll try to connect with them.

Beulah-palooza - This is an idea a few of us have had to add a second stage on the weekends of Beulah camp that featured modern worship with more creative elements and speaking that is more stylistically and substantially targeted at a younger audience. The hope would be to keep beulah from loosing an entire generation like so many churches have. I love Beulah but it's days are numbered unless we find ways to make it a relevant and accessible (whole other post) experience for people in their 20's and 30's who haven't grown up going there.

Deep Water Presence at Pride - Next week is pride week here in Halifax. It's likely to late for us to make a serious attempt to be involved this year but perhaps next. I would love to see Deep Water have a presence at some of these events. Not sure what that would look like or how we would go about it but if we want to build bridges to that community it seems like a good place to be present. I guess I need to have some more ideas about this one.

Church Planters Manual - I love the Atlantic District. It's my family. And like all families we have our issues. One of them is that we absolutely stink and resourcing church planters. I'd like to take the time to sit down and put together a completely idiot proof manual for planting a wesleyan church in Atlantic Canada. Not so much the ministry end of it, that needs to change from planter to planter and context to context but one that covers all the government and denominational stuff. I think i have figured out most of it but we could save others tons of time and frustration if we had a sweet guide to hand to them on the day they become planters.